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HONORABLE JAMES M. CURLEY, MAYOR OF BOSTON 




BOSTON AND ITS STORY 


1630 — 1915 


A RELATION PREPARED BY 

EDWARD M. HARTWELL 

Secretary Statistics Department 

Chairman 

EDWARD W. McGLENEN 

City Registrar 

EDWARD O. SKELTON 

Journalist and Historian 

APPOINTED BY 

Elis Honor JAMES M. CURLEY 

Mayor of Boston 


> & $ 

9 ) 


City of boston 
PRINTING DEPARTMENT 
1916 







Copyright 1916 ,. City of Boston 


.if.' tfrpfiyc 

ep \\ m 



SEP 17 1917 



BOSTON AND ITS STORY. 


Boston has been an important place for more than two 
hundred and fifty years. Its history is intimately bound 
up with that of Massachusetts, of which it is the capital, 
and of New England, of which it has long been the 
metropolis. It has suffered many vicissitudes and under¬ 
gone striking transformations in respect to territory and 
topography, as well as the form of its government, but 
from the beginning it has been a seed-plot and nursery 
of advanced political and social ideas and experiments. 

The purpose of these pages is twofold: (1) to furnish a 
clue to the history of Boston as an individual com¬ 
munity that, owing to the force of circumstances and the 
spirit of its people, has played a conspicuous and influen¬ 
tial part in the larger development of Massachusetts, of 
New England and of the nation; and (2) to indicate the 
nature of the events that gave historical significance to 
memorable sites and objects that have survived the 
ravages of time and still excite interest and veneration. 
So it is not a history that we present to our readers, but 
rather a relation or narrative concerning the development 
of “a poor country village” into a great city of vast and 
varied interests and of commanding rank. 

It is not our purpose to attempt to recount with fulness 
of detail all or even most of the deeds of which Bostonians 
are proud, or to pass judgment upon men or measures 
involved in controversial questions as to morals or politics 
that once seemed of vital moment and are still capable 
of arousing warm discussion. Such matters are better 
left to technical historians and partisan pamphleteers. 



4 


Boston and Its Story. 


We conceive our relation as somewhat resembling the 
report which Capt. John Smith published in 1616 on 
his exploration in 1614 of the coast of what was then 
generally known as North Virginia. “In this voyage,” 
he says, “I took the description of the coast, as well by 
map as writing, and called it New England.” His original 
map showed the trends of the coast line from “Pennobscot 
to Cape Cod.” There appear also the principal head¬ 
lands, bays, river mouths and Indian villages along the 
shore, together with a few outstanding mountains and 
not a few outlying islands, but the bulk of the back 
country is prudently left blank. In later editions of the 
map considerable portions back from the shore contain 
additional geographical data, notably in the region at the 
head of Massachusetts Bay. 

“New England,” says Smith, “is that part of America 
in the Ocean Sea opposite to Nova Albyon in the South 
Sea, discovered by the most memorable Sir Francis 
Drake in his voyage about the world. In regard thereto 
this is stiled New England, being in the same latitude. 
New France, off it is Northward; Southward is Virginia, 
and all the adjoining Continent, with New Granado, 
New Spaine, New Andolosia, and the West Indies .” 

It is noteworthy that in the course of three hundred 
years all the names enumerated above by the Admiral 
of New England, save New England, Virginia and the 
West Indies, have faded from the map; and also that 
New England remains the most distinctively individual 
section of the United States, which include much of 
Smith’s New France and New Spaine, as well as Drake’s 
Nova Albyon (California). 

Smith’s map is still of interest not only because it was 
the first, and for years the standard, map of New Eng- 


The Godfather of New England. 


5 


land, but also because we find on it a spot named “Bos¬ 
ton,” by King Charles I., who was Prince of Wales when 
Smith made humble suit that he “would please to change 
their Barbarous names, for such English, as Posterity may 
say, Prince Charles was their Godfather.” So it was a 
Stuart Prince who confirmed Smith’s choice of New 
England as against the names Nusconcus, Canaday, 
Pemaquidia and Norumbega (all of which were then 
current) and substituted English for Indian names on 
the original map dedicated to him. Strange to say it 
was at Accomack, named Plimouth by Prince Charles, 
that the Pilgrim Fathers laid out their New Plymouth in 
1620. The name of the Indian village of Accomenticus 
(Agamenticus) was changed to Boston in 1616. Later 
the Lord Proprietor of that part of Maine named it Gor- 
geana, about 1641 (after himself), and directed that it 
should be styled and organized as a city corporation. 
Old York in Maine is usually held to contain the site of 
the Boston of 1616, which as Gorgeana in 1641 or there¬ 
abouts had the first Mayor in New England. 

Smith’s map was frequently revised and republished. 
Its tenth state, issued in 1635, shows two Bostons, ours 
on the south bank of the Charles River and the Stuart 
Boston on a bay east of what is still known as Mount 
Agamenticus. 

Lest we forget what we owe to the Godfather of New 
England, it may be well to note some sites whose names 
commemorate his gracious complaisance. He named 
Cape Ann in honor of his mother and the Charles River 
in honor of himself. In honor of his father he renamed 
Cape Cod, Cape James, and in honor of his House he 
gave the name of Stuard’s Bay to what is now known as 
Cape Cod Bay. 


6 


Boston and Its Story. 


Practically all the Charlestons and Charlestowns in the 
country were named directly or indirectly for King Charles 
I. or King Charles II., while the capes of Virginia still 
bear the names that Smith on his way to Jamestown in 
1607 gave them in honor of his sovereign’s heirs, Prince 
Charles and his elder brother, Prince Henry. 

In Massachusetts, the County of Duke’s County, incor¬ 
porated 1695, commemorates the transfer of Martha’s 
Vineyard from the Duke of York’s Province to the Bay 
Colony. 

Other Stuart memorials are found in the names of 
Maryland, so called in compliment to Henrietta Maria, 
Charles the First’s Consort, and New York, named for his 
son James II., to whom as the Duke of York the greater 
part of New Netherland was given by Charles II., in 
1664, after its seizure from the Dutch. 

Although the colonizers of Virginia and New England 
suffered much at the hands of the Stuarts it should be 
remembered that it was owing to their good nature that 
the first permanent English settlements were effected. 

In Smith’s career the changeful spirit of the promoters 
of colonization of the English possessions in the New 
World is reflected. Beginning as a hardy adventurer 
and knight-errant, he became first an explorer, then a 
practical colonizer and then a writer on the best methods 
of effecting and conducting English settlements in New 
England. Again and again his ambition to plant an 
outpost for trading and fishing on the coast, which he 
had mapped and to which he had given the name it still 
bears, was balked. In 1631, the year of his death, the 
sometime Governor of Virginia and Admiral of New 
England published his last book, viz., “Advertisements 
for the inexperienced Planters of New England, or any- 


The Admiral of New England. 


7 


where.” In it he makes mention of the Brownists 
(Pilgrims) on Plymouth Bay, which bay he had visited 
in 1614, and of Mr. Winthrop’s new settlement at the 
head of Massachusetts Bay, which he had happily 
characterized as “the Paradise of these parts,” although 
he had never set foot there. 

His was the fate of many another American pioneer 
who came after him. Shortly before he died he wrote, 
“But I see those countries shared before me by those 
who know them only by my description.” 

Ten years before the publication of Smith’s Descrip¬ 
tion of New England, the English crown had adopted the 
policy of actively promoting the colonization of those 
parts of North America which it claimed to possess by 
virtue of the discoveries of the Cabots in 1497 and 1498 
under the patronage of Henry VII. How little that 
astute and avaricious potentate appreciated the value 
of the continent discovered by the Cabots may be inferred 
from an entry said to have been made in his private 
accounts, viz., “To the man that found the new island, 
£10.” 

Although the discoveries of Columbus led many enter¬ 
prising seamen to set out for the New World in quest of 
new trade routes to the Orient, and incidentally to acquire 
new lands for their royal patrons, it was not until the 
time of Queen Elizabeth that the English began to rival 
the Spaniards and the French in exploration of the New 
World. The voyages then undertaken by Drake and 
Frobisher and Sir Humphrey Gilbert were made under 
authority of letters patent from Queen Elizabeth to seek 
and gain possession of lands not hitherto occupied by 
some Christian power. The patent granted to Gilbert 
in 1578, subsequently taken over by Sir Walter Raleigh, 


8 


Boston and Its Story. 


empowered him to discover and possess any unsettled 
lands in North America. It also granted a practical 
monopoly of trading and planting in the region north 
of Florida, to which the name of Virginia was given in 
honor of the “Virgin Queen.” 

Raleigh was essentially a prospector for mines and a 
fortune hunter, although he vainly attempted to found a 
settlement at Roanoke Island. Raleigh and his agents 
did but little exploring. When Raleigh was sent to the 
Tower in 1603 by King James I. the rights conveyed 
under his patent from Elizabeth reverted to the crown. 

Meanwhile, in 1602, the first noteworthy exploration 
of the coast of North Virginia was made by Capt. 
Bartholomew Gosnold, without Raleigh’s permission, in 
the “Concord.” Gosnold’s patrons were the Earl of 
Southampton and Sir Ferdinando Gorges, military gov¬ 
ernor of Plymouth, who were anxious to inform themselves 
as to the nature and resources of the region in question. 
Gosnold’s bark, with thirty-two persons on board, 
sailed from Falmouth on March 26, 1602. On May 14 
they made what are now known as Cape Porpoise and 
the Nubble off Cape Neddick on the coast of Maine. 
At the Nubble, which Gosnold named Savage Rock, 
* Indians in “a Biscay shallop” were met with. One of 
them, who wore Christian clothes and could speak a 
little fisherman’s English, described the coast with the 
aid of “a piece of chalk.” The next day the party took 
“great store of cod” off “a mighty headland,” which 
Gosnold named Cape Cod,— the first place in Massa¬ 
chusetts to receive an English name. 

Skirting the coast to the southward they landed, May 
21, on an island, to which the name of Martha’s Vineyard 
was given. Gay Head was visited and named Dover 


Gosnold at Cuttyhunk, 1602. 


9 


Cliff. After touching at Dartmouth on the mainland 
they landed, May 28, at Cuttyhunk, the most westerly 
of the Elizabeth Islands. 

The party stayed at Cuttyhunk till June 17, busily 
engaged in cutting sassafras wood and cedar logs, plant¬ 
ing wheat, barley, oats and peas to test the soil, and in 
building a small fort on an islet within a pond. Gosnold 
planned to make his headquarters there with twelve men 
for six months so that he might explore further. But 
on June 8 it was found that they had barely six weeks’ 
provisions instead of enough for six months. So the first 
English foothold in New England had to be abandoned. 
On June 18 the Concord bore away from Nomans- 
land for England, which was reached after a voyage 
of thirty-five days. Their cargo of sassafras and cedar 
yielded a profit, although Raleigh demurred at their 
selling it all at once lest the market should be depressed. 

In 1603 Capt. Martin Pring came out to North 
Virginia in command of the ship “Speedwell” and the 
bark “ Discoverer.” His party numbered fifty-four men. 
The venture for which £1,000 had been subscribed by 
merchants and “the chiefest inhabitants” of Bristol 
had Raleigh’s permission. Their first landfall was among 
the islands of Penobscot Bay. Pring explored the Saco 
River for five miles from its mouth; skirted the mouths 
of the Kennebunk, York and Piscataqua Rivers; then he 
“bore into the Great Gulf which Capt. Gosnold had 
overshot” the year before, i. e., he entered the lower 
reaches of Massachusetts Bay and discovered the present 
Plymouth Harbor, which he named Whitson Bay. 

He loaded the Discoverer with sassafras and des¬ 
patched her to England about the end of July. Mean¬ 
while, like Gosnold, he had succeeded in getting grain, 


10 


Boston and Its Story. 


peas and beans to grow. He was visited by many 
Indians, concerning whose characteristics and disposition 
he made a full and rather favorable report. On August 
8 or 9 the Speedwell sailed for England, which was 
reached after an absence of six months. 

Pierre du Guast, Sieur de Monts, was appointed Lieu¬ 
tenant-General of Acadia by the King of France and set 
forth with two vessels to establish a colony in New France. 
Samuel de Champlain accompanied him. They cruised 
along the coast of Nova Scotia, and built a settle¬ 
ment on St. Croix Island (August 8, 1604), in the St. 
Croix River, w r hich is now the boundary between Maine 
and New Brunswick. Champlain, exploring farther to 
the westward, discovered the island of Mount Desert, gave 
it the name it still bears, and then sailed up the Penobscot 
as far as the site of Bangor. 

On June 18, 1605, the De Monts expedition set sail 
from St. Croix “in quest of a place better adapted for an 
abode and with a better tempera Lire.” Champlain was 
in command as pilot. The party numbered some thirty 
persons. Coasting westward leisurely, they anchored 
off Thatcher’s island, Cape Ann, in the evening of July 15. 
On the 16th Champlain landed on the beach near Land’s 
End. In his journal he states: 

“We named this place Island Cape. I made the 
savages understand as well as I could, that I desired them 
to show me the course of the shore. After I had drawn 
with a crayon the bay and the Island Cape where we 
were, with the same crayon they drew the outline of 
another bay, which they represented as very large; here 
they placed six pebbles at equal distances apart, giving 
me to understand by this, that these signs represented 
as many chiefs and tribes. . . . Continuing our course 
to the west-southwest, we saw numerous islands on one 


Champlain Visits Boston Harbor. 


11 


side and the other. Having sailed seven or eight leagues 
we anchored near an island (in Boston Harbor) whence 
we observed many smokes along the shore and many 
savages running up to see us. Sieur de Monts sent two 
or three men in a canoe to them, to whom he gave some 
knives and paternosters to present to them. . . . All 
along the shore there is a great deal of land cleared up 
and planted with Indian corn. The country is very 
pleasant and agreeable, and there is no lack of fine trees. 
... I observed in the bay all the savages had described 
to me at Island Cape. We passed by some islands cov¬ 
ered with wood. There is, moreover, in this bay a very 
broad river (the Charles) which we named River du Guast. 
It stretches, as it seemed to me, towards the Iroquois, a 
nation in open warfare with the Montagnais, who live 
on the great river St. Lawrence.” 

On July 17 Champlain sailed out of Boston Harbor, 
skirting the south shore. Entering Plymouth Harbor, 
they saw cabins and gardens of the natives, who flocked 
to the shore and danced for them. Champlain went 
ashore and was cordially treated by the natives. From 
Plymouth, Champlain circled the bay to the southward 
and, rounding Cape Cod, which he named Cape Blanc, 
entered Nauset Harbor, where a landing party went to 
obtain water. From Nauset the party returned to St. 
Croix, and De Monts loaded his barks with the frames 
of the houses and transported them to Port Royal, twenty- 
five leagues distant. In 1608 Champlain effected at 
Quebec the first permanent settlement in New France. 

It would appear that no Englishman entered Boston 
Bay prior to 1621, when it was visited by a party from 
Plymouth under command of Myles Standish. 

In 1605 Capt. George Waymouth came out to New 
England in the “Archangel” in the interest of certain 
promoters who were considering that region as a field in 


12 


Boston and Its Story. 


which to make investments. Way mouth’s explorations, 
which lasted barely a month, were chiefly confined to the 
St. George’s River and the islands between it and Pema- 
quid. He set up a cross on Allen’s Island May 29 and 
landed June 13, at the site of the present town of Thomas- 
ton, Maine. Three days later he sailed homeward, carry¬ 
ing five natives that he had kidnapped from Pemaquid. 
The memory of this outrage rankled long in the breasts 
of the redmen, who later on were much more friendly to 
the French, who proved better neighbors than the English. 

In the summer of 1606, Pring made a second voyage to 
New England and carefully explored the rivers and 
harbors from the Penobscot to the Kennebec. He 
made a map which was highly praised by Sir F. Gorges, 
who took an extraordinary interest in all that related 
to North Virginia. Unfortunately, no trace of Pring’s 
map has come down to us. This report of Pring is said 
to have determined the Plymouth Company to plant a 
colony at Sagadahoc at the mouth of the Kennebec 
River. 

In 1606 a company of associates, to whom Raleigh had 
assigned his trading privileges, petitioned James I. for a 
charter. The charter was issued April 10, 1606, and a 
stock company was formed for the establishment of two 
colonies in Virginia. The company comprised two 
divisions, known respectively from their headquarters 
as the London and Plymouth companies. The former 
was granted jurisdiction between 34° and 38° north 
latitude, and the latter between 41° and 45°. The inter¬ 
vening territory, i. e., 38°-41°, was to go to whichever 
company should first establish a permanent colony. The 
king reserved the power to nominate a resident council 
in each colony, while a council having its seat in England 


First Settlement in New England, 1607. 13 

was given general supervision of both. A more liberal 
charter was granted in 1609, making the company virtually 
independent and governed by a representative body. 
The first permanent English settlement in America was 
effected at Jamestown in 1607 by the agents of the 
London Company, among whom were Capt. John Smith 
and Capt. Gosnold. 

Sir John Popham, Lord Chief Justice, like Sir F. Gorges, 
was a prominent member of the Plymouth Company, 
which undertook the planting of a colony at Sagadahoc, 
on the Kennebec River. Associated with George Popham, 
who w r as styled President of the colony, was Capt. Raleigh 
Gilbert, a kinsman of Sir Walter Raleigh. Two ships, 
the “Gift of God” and the “Mary and John,” sailed from 
England on June 1, 1607. They arrived at the mouth of 
the Kennebec on August 18, having explored Allen’s 
Island and other points during the preceding fortnight. 
The patent and the ordinances prescribed for the govern¬ 
ment of the colony having been read, all hands fell on 
the 20th to building a fort. Fifteen houses, a chapel and 
a storehouse were also built. 

The winter was severe. President Popham died before 
spring. Gilbert, who assumed charge, was harsh in his 
treatment of the Indians, who became hostile. In May, 
1608, word came that Sir John Popham, the principal 
financial backer of the colony, had died. Gilbert returned 
to England in the fall of 1608 in order to lay claim to the 
estate of Sir John Gilbert, who had died in July. So the 
remainder of the colonists promptly abandoned the 
Sagadahoc settlement and returned to England. Their 
reasons for so doing are noteworthy, viz.: 

“No mines discovered, nor hope thereof being the main 
intended benefit to uphold this plantation, and the fear 


14 


Boston and Its Story. 


that all other winters would prove like the first, the com¬ 
pany by no means would stay any longer in the country.’’ 

Gorges wrote a relation of the voyages to Sagadahoc, 
in which the term “New England” appears,— probably 
its first use. 

The dismal report of the Popham colonists respecting 
the winter climate of North Virginia chilled the ardor of 
English speculators and explorers so that there were no 
more summer excursions to that coast until 1614, when 
Smith undertook to find mines and kill whales for his 
employers — certain merchants of Bristol. Smith did 
not really expect to find gold and soon gave up the hunt 
for whales and fell to gathering data for his map and 
relation, while most of his shipmates were fishing for cod. 

Smith was a firm believer in the future of New England 
and hazarded his life and fortune towards realizing his 
hopes. But he frankly declared that he was not so 
simple as to suppose that any other motive than riches 
would “ever erect there a commonwealth or draw company 
from their ease and humours at home to stay in New 
England.” 

It was the staying qualities of the Pilgrims who founded 
New Plymouth in the winter of 1620-21 that gave a new 
impetus to colonial ventures in New England. The 
economic success of the feeble colony at Plymouth seems 
to have caused what would now be called “a sensation” 
in England. At any rate, they proved that English men 
and women could make a living in New England. In the 
midst of their struggles some of their brethren in England 
wrote thus to them— “Let it not be grievous unto you 
that you have been instrumental to break the ice for 
others. The honor shall be yours to the world’s end.” 


The Mayflower Pilgrims, 1620. 


15 


“It was left,” says John Fiske, “for religious enthusiasm 
to achieve what commercial enterprise had failed to 
accomplish.” 

In the little town of Scrooby, in Nottinghamshire, 
resided a body of people who, during the reign of Eliza¬ 
beth, were known as Separatists because of their religious 
belief. They disputed the authority of the Anglican 
Church, declaring that it was not a true church and that 
it was sinful to attend its worshiping assemblies and 
listen to the preaching of the Word of God therein. The 
severe laws passed by Parliament against those who 
refused to accept the supremacy of the National Church 
so harassed the Separatists that in 1608 they went to 
Holland. In Leyden, where they settled, they secured 
employment and their number was augmented until 
their membership amounted to some three hundred. 
They were happy and contented in their new home until 
upon the horizon of Europe began to loom the dark clouds 
of the coming Thirty Years’ War, when, too, the waning 
industries of Leyden imperiled their employment and 
their sufferings began. Then the question of removal was 
agitated. Representations being made to the crown, 
permission was granted to the company to make a settle¬ 
ment upon the crown lands in Virginia. Arrangements 
were perfected with the Merchant Adventurers’ Com¬ 
pany of London to fit out a ship to convey them to 
Virginia and to furnish them with means of sustenance 
for one year after they had reached their new home. 

The terms presented to them caused great discussion 
and a majority voted against accepting them; but the 
minority, being large, listened to their leader, William 
Brewster, and loyally stood by him and agreed to accom¬ 
pany him to the new land. On July 1, 1620, an agree- 


16 


Boston and Its Story. 


ment was drawn up and approved, whereby for seven 
years everyone who went should have equal interest in 
everything, and the undertaking be carried on for the 
common good, until, at the expiration of that time, all 
should be divided between the Adventurers and the 
Pilgrims. 

From Delfthaven, July 23, the Pilgrims sailed in the ship 
“ Speedwell,” for Southampton where the “Mayflower” 
met them. They were transferred to that ship, and sailed 
from Southampton August 15 for Plymouth, England, 
and on September 16 the historic Mayflower, of one 
hundred and eighty tons, with one hundred and two 
Pilgrims on board and twenty boys and eight girls, 
children of the emigrants, set out for the new w T orld. 

The crown authorities had granted them permission 
to go to what is now New Jersey, with the intention that 
the Pilgrims should make their settlement at that part 
which was near to the territory occupied by the Dutch, 
but not in direct contact with them. The voyage was 
long and stormy, and the Mayflower was driven far 
from her course. On the sixty-seventh day, November 21, 
she cast anchor in Provincetown Harbor. 

During the voyage those who had been sent over by 
the London Company and who were not in sympathy 
with the religious views of the Pilgrims endeavored to 
sow the seeds of discord and were at times turbulent. 
Governor Winslow in his Journal says: 

“It was thought good there should be an Association 
and agreement that we should combine together in one 
body, and to submit to such government and governors 
as we should by common consent agree to make and 
choose, and set our hands to this that follows word for 
word.” 


THE MAYFLOWER COMPACT. 


fAuy ntxntr of <{od-J-? -ruAofo -namts are 'lxr\dem>rx-f<?n. 

AAe /oyec@ S kG xec¥s. of our dread yZuercnjrnO- ford Hfiff AanteS 
£jjr g-rotcd- of ofyfrcaS ArvSaine^framc,^prefund A'-nyy 
defend**- ofj f**■(&,&&- • 

H<*«« foryyf&rid- of ^oA, ^nd afuan C % menSs 
ofjf cfriffa.n fa™d Aonoar^ of o-u.r a'boyocj£d~£e 

^3AcCrtfy^fx'rsA~ Cofonxe. ~m y ffor/A-^mO parfj of y'trymter- ctoJ- 
fy SArfe ^rtfc-uSs Sofc~*tty(L rxu.tu.afy mf jj referee of c^od ,a*ttf 
cue of ano/Aer Couenanffr ComAtnt ourfeCu.es loyeafAer-Afoa: 

CirtllZ foiy V'ftAiAA, fr^AoAor o r f enn^prefer uaSton C _£^ 

SAerxntfoffers oforfcff; ate Ay Virtue Ae*rof A* fxacCe^ 

C„&fufr, an f frame ffuTA } u?f ^cau.a<t 

yTSs J co~J?*-euAons t( i_ qfi'cea , fro* txme to Amc, asJAatf A* So 

onot?mtcSe. eo>*v«r *»ent fotry Jf° c *ffj Cofoodf- ' h f* 

W a WC V roy*iifo a(p fur Sufmxfon auct afoAencO-. ofn mytnes 

yvAcrtf »’t A nue Acre’imShtr ^uffrtAed ou.tr names Cay? — 
Cote/■„■ ofnoucmA^mtfjtactr off of our Souora*^ 

ford Jfnj ffames of ‘L.nJ&.n f franco; ^ Hrtfand f a^Ateenf 

*nJ stiffedjfftf fourik-Jin- Oom . 1 Afc - ? 


I 


TRANSLATION OF THE ABOVE. 

In y e name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwriten, the loyall sub¬ 
jects of our dread soveraigne Lord, King James, by y e grace of God, of Great 
Britaine, Franc, & Ireland king, defender of y e faith, &c., haveing undertaken, 
for y e glorie of God, and advancemente of y e Christian faith, and honour of our 
king & countrie, a voyage to plant y e first colonie in y e Northerne parts of Vir¬ 
ginia, doe by these presents solemnly & mutualy in y e presence of God, and one 
of another, covenant & combine our selves togeather into a civill body politick, 
for our better ordering & preservation & furtherance of y e ends aforesaid; and 
by vertue hearof to enacte, constitute, and frame such just & equall lawes, ordi¬ 
nances, acts, constitutions, & offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most 
meete & convenient for y e generall good of y e Colonie, unto which we promise all 
due submission and obedience. In witnes wherof we have hereunder subscribed 
our names at Cap-Codd y e 11. of November, in y e year of y® raigne of our sov¬ 
eraigne lord, King James, of England, France, & Ireland y e eighteenth, and of 
Scotland y e fiftie fourth. An 0 : Dom. 1620. 







The Mayflower Compact. 


17 


W inslow’s reference is to the compact which was 
drawn up in the cabin of the Mayflower, November 11, 
(old style), the night before the first landing at Province- 
town. Thus the founders of Plymouth met a disquiet¬ 
ing situation, and provided for the civil government of 
their enterprise. It was the first instrument issued in 
America that embodied the principle of consent on the 
part of the members of the community. 

Concerning the compact, John Quincy Adams declared: 

‘‘This is perhaps the only instance in human history 
of that positive, original, social compact which specula¬ 
tive philosophers have imagined as the only legitimate 
source of government. Here was a unanimous and per¬ 
sonal assent by all the individuals of the community to 
the association by which they became a nation 

Possibly this is the most fulsome expression of the views 
held by the older writers as to the political significance of 
the Mayflower compact. 

John Carver was chosen Governor. William Brew¬ 
ster, although not ordained, was chosen Ruling Elder, the 
spiritual head of the company. Myles Standish was 
made captain and military commander. 

The morning after the signing of the compact the first 
landing on New England soil by the Pilgrims was made by 
Capt. Myles Standish and sixteen men. Exploration of 
the territory within a few miles, during which signs of 
Indians were observed, convinced them that the location 
was undesirable. Upon returning aboard ship it was 
decided that Standish and his men should take a small 
shallop and cruise along the coast. This was done, and 
the first night’s stop was at what is now Wellfleet. Here 
they were attacked by Indians, who fled at the first fire 
from Standish’s men. 


18 


Boston and Its Story. 


Proceeding further along the coast they finally reached 
an island and the sight of land a short distance away led 
them to sound the depth of water in the harbor. Finding 
it sufficient for ships of good draught, they made the 
historic landing December 21, 1620 — and New England 
was born! Five days later the Mayflower sailed into 
the harbor with the company of Pilgrims, and cast¬ 
ing anchor the historic voyage was ended and their new- 
world life began. 

As their eager feet touched first upon that revered 
granite rock they gave to it a deep consecration. Then 
and there began a new era in America’s great experiment! 
There landed that day an independent church, claiming 
a direct connection with Christ, as did the church in the 
beginning, but without human link or mediation. These 
people were peaceful, affectionate, industrious, moderate 
in government, and just, one to another. Such were the 
people who, as they progressed, enacted laws, fundamental 
but mild, which to-day serve to control in part our great 
country. To them we owe the first law for trial by jury, 
for registry of lands in public books, of taxation, of the 
first customs’ order, and of the first laws enacted in 
America providing for an equitable distribution of 
property among widows and children. 

It was on December 26, 1620, just one hundred and 
two days from its departure from Plymouth, England 
(by a singular coincidence there were one hundred and 
two Pilgrims aboard), when the Mayflower dropped 
anchor in Plymouth Harbor. Immediately they planned 
for their settlement. A street called Leyden was laid 
out, the original plan of which is still in existence. Lots 
of ground to build upon were set out to various men, 
but first they erected a “Common House.” That 



PLYMOUTH ROCK. 




























The Pilgrims at New Plymouth. 19 

first winter at Plymouth was most disastrous to the 
Pilgrims, one-half their number dying from lung troubles. 
The survivors were haunted by the ever-present fear of 
an attack from the Indians, but these fears were need¬ 
less. The Indian Samoset came among them giving 
evidence of peaceful intentions, and a few days later 
returned with Chief Squanto and Grand Chief Massasoit, 
with whom they made a treaty of peace. 

Upon the death of Governor Carver, in 1621, they 
elected William Bradford as Governor. This year the 
ship “Fortune” arrived, bringing stores and thirty-five 
emigrants, followed directly by the “Anne,” with 
thirty-one. Between this date and 1629 there arrived 
a sufficient number of immigrants to make the total 
number of Pilgrims about three hundred. And this was 
the greatest number that gathered at Plymouth under 
their adventure. 

The principal men of Plymouth, under whose direc¬ 
tion affairs were conducted, were William Bradford, 
William Brewster, Edward Winslow, Myles Standish 
and Isaac Allerton. The religious instructions of the 
colony were imparted by Brewster, the Ruling Elder, and 
it was not until 1629 that they had an ordained minister, 
the Rev. Ralf Smith. 

Between 1630 and 1633 many of the colonists began 
to seek homes outside of Plymouth. There were removals 
to Duxbury, Marshfield, Eastham, Scituate, Taunton, 
Yarmouth, Dartmouth and other places. About 1634 
people from the Bay Colony began to settle within the 
domain of the Pilgrims and thereafter, with few excep¬ 
tions, it was to the arrival of such people that the increase 
of the colony from without was due. 

When the General Court of Deputies from the several 


20 


Boston and Its Story. 


towns was established in 1639 so large had been the 
immigration from Massachusetts Bay that six towns 
or settlements besides Plymouth were represented. As 
the years passed, the people of both colonies gradually 
came closer together until finally they were merged into 
one people politically, but continued under the wise 
religious administration of Brewster, who died in 1643; 
of Winslow, who left for England in 1646; and Bradford, 
who died in 1657, leaving an invaluable account of the 
Pilgrims from 1620 to 1648, which is known as Bradford’s 
History. Bradford’s manuscripts may be seen at the 
State House in the State Library. 

The success of the Pilgrims in maintaining their foot¬ 
hold at Plymouth seems to have drawn the attention of 
enterprising men in England to the shores of Massachu¬ 
setts Bay. Thomas Weston, the agent and treasurer 
of the adventurers in London, who had financed the 
Plymouth colonists, sold out his stock in that venture and 
set about establishing a plantation in the neighborhood 
of Plymouth on his own account. In May, 1622, his 
advance agents arrived and purchased a site from the 
sachem of the Wessagusset Indians, on the south shore 
of the Bay, at a place now known as Weymouth. Two 
months later Weston’s colonists, some seventy in number, 
arrived. They seem to have been ill selected, insuffi¬ 
ciently provisioned, and poorly organized. The Plymouth 
people treated them hospitably, for many of them were 
ill, and helped them procure corn and beans from the 
natives to eke out their supplies. In March, 1623, the 
Wessagusset Indians became threatening, having formed 
a plan to destroy both the Plymouth and Wessagusset 
settlements. 

Myles Standish, with nine men, came to their aid, slew 



EDWARD WINSLOW, GOVERNOR PLYMOUTH COLONY. 






The Old Planters, 1622-25. 


21 


some Indians and put the rest to flight. Acting on advice 
of Standish, who shared his provisions among them, they 
abandoned their stockade and sailed away at the end of 
March for Monhegan, leaving only two of their number 
to repair to Plymouth with Standish. 

In 1622 Gorges and Mason obtained a grant of all the 
land between the Kennebec and the Merrimac. In 1623 
Robert Gorges, son of the indefatigable Sir Ferdinando, 
obtained a grant of some 300 square miles on the north 
side of Massachusetts Bay. In September, 1623, the 
younger Gorges, having come over to look after his 
grant, took possession of Weston’s abandoned stockade 
at Wessagusset, although it was on the South Shore. 

The next spring Gorges got word from his father that 
it was impossible to raise funds to further the enterprise. 
Accordingly Gorges returned to England, leaving Rev. 
William Morell, an Anglican clergyman, in charge of the 
plantation, where Samuel Maverick had arrived meanwhile 
in the Gorges’ interest. 

Morell held on till the spring of 1625, when he returned 
to England. That summer, Captain Wollaston, accom¬ 
panied by the picturesque Thomas Morton and a band of 
indented servants, set up a plantation opposite Wessa¬ 
gusset on the present Fore River, within the bounds of 
what fourteen years later was set off from Boston as the 
town of Braintree. 

Meanwhile, Maverick had begun a fortified house at 
Winnissimet (Chelsea) on the north side of the Bay. 
Rev. William Blackstone, who had been Morell’s assist¬ 
ant, repaired in 1625 to the Shawmut peninsula, and 
built him a cabin on the westerly side of the hill over¬ 
looking the present Boston Common. Thus Blackstone 
became the first white settler of Boston. 


22 


Boston and Its Story. 


Although the settlers at Plymouth concerned themselves 
mainly with agriculture they were not devoid of com¬ 
mercial enterprise. Their leaders, having established 
amicable relations with their Indian neighbors, sought 
out the savages at the head of Massachusetts Bay in 
order that they might trade with them also for grain and 
furs. As time went on, the Pilgrims established fishing 
stations at Cape Ann and on the coast of Maine, and 
built a fort on the Connecticut River, near the site of 
the present Hartford. 

Boston has always owed much to the natural advan¬ 
tages of its location. But those advantages were not 
revealed to English eyes until an expedition from the 
Plymouth Colony rounded the Shawmut peninsula and 
landed at Mishawum in the early • fall of 1621. In 
September of that year, Governor Bradford sent ten men 
in a shallop, under command of Myles Standish, on an 
expedition, whose main purpose was to establish favor¬ 
able trade relations with the Indians at the head of 
Massachusetts Bay. 

They sailed from Plymouth at midnight of Tuesday, 
September 18. Skirting the south shore of the Bay, they 
anchored under the lee of a large island before sunset on 
Wednesday. They found the island uninhabited. It 
was claimed by one of the party in the name of David 
Thompson, then a resident of Plymouth, in England. 
Thompson took possession afterwards and the island 
still bears his name. 

The next morning, on crossing to Squantum Head, the 
explorers first encountered Indians. At Savin Hill they 
entered into negotiations with the sachem whom they 
found there. He was friendly, being a subject of Massa- 
soit, and acted as their guide past the peninsulas, now 


Standish Visits Boston Harbor, 1621. 23 

known as South Boston and Boston Proper, in the after¬ 
noon, till they reached the great cove of Mishawum 
(Charlestown), in which they passed the night at 
anchor. 

Early on Friday morning, two men being left to guard 
the boat, the party marched into the country in search 
of Indians. Following the trails near the Mystic River, 
they appear to have penetrated as far as the present High 
street of Medford, or even to the present Winchester. 
Although the Indians were shy, they gave the English¬ 
men food and sold them furs. Moreover, they promised 
to plant corn and save their beaver skins as the basis for 
future trading. 

The celerity of Standish’s movements and despatch 
of business was noteworthy, for we read that in the 
afternoon of Friday his party started for home, which 
was reached the next day before noon. 

The shores and waters at the mouths of the Charles 
and the Mystic Rivers had impressed the explorers 
favorably, and they reported that: 

“ Better harbors for shipping cannot be, than here are. 
At the entrance of the Bay are many rocks and islands, 
and in all likelihood, very good fishing ground. Many, 
yea most of the islands have been inhabited, some being 
cleared from end to end, but the people are all dead or 
removed.” 

Bradford’s History notes that the party 

“ brought home a good quantity of beaver and made 
report of the place, wishing that they had been there 
seated, but it seems the Lord, Who assigns to all men 
the points of their habitations, had appointed it for 
another use.” 


24 


Boston and Its Story. 


That use, as events proved, was to make Boston 
a stronghold of Puritanism and the metropolis of New 
England. 

The ideals and projects of the earlier explorers and 
planters of New England were untinged by Puritanism. 
The founders of New Plymouth were Separatists as well 
as exiles. They are properly to be classed as Puritans? 
but they were out of touch and sympathy with the main 
body of that party, who were moderates in doctrine and 
policy. It was not till the struggle between Charles I. 
and the Country Party began to assume portentous 
proportions and the prospects of purifying church and 
state grew dark, that the leaders of that party, being 
impressed by the success of the Pilgrims in planting a 
self-sustaining colony, began to look on New England as 
their New Caanan. 

It was natural that they should look toward the region 
about Massachusetts Bay as their land of refuge. Already 
by 1626, a few pioneer Puritans (who had withdrawn 
from Plymouth, like Roger Conant, or had been expelled 
from there, like John Oldham and the Rev. John Lyford) 
had settled at Natascot (Nantasket) and Cape Ann. 
Moreover, the region between the Kennebec and Merrimac 
rivers had been granted to Sir F. Georges and John 
Mason, and the region southwest of Buzzards Bay was 
debatable land, whose occupation was likely to arouse the 
ill-will of the Dutch in New Netherland. So, aside from 
its superior advantages on other accounts, the region 
between the Merrimac and the Charles rivers was the 
most eligible left as the objective point of a Puritan 
migration. 

In 1623 a small company of merchants of Dorchester, 
in the west of England, undertook to establish a fishing 


Settlements at Cape Ann and Salem. 25 

station and plantation, with a preacher in attendance, 
on Cape Ann. Rev. John White, a prominent Puritan 
clergyman of Dorchester, appears to have taken an 
active interest in this project, to forward which some 
£3,000 were subscribed. In 1624 a small beginning 
■was made, and in 1625 Roger Conant became Governor, 
i. e.j superintendent of the plantation, and Rev. John 
Lyford its minister. In 1626 three vessels were sent 
over; one of them bore cattle and provisions. In the 
fall of 1626 the fishery was abandoned, and Conant with 
a few associates removed to Naumkeag (Salem) as a 
preferable place for tillage and pasturage. Rev. John 
White promised to exert himself to secure a patent and 
send out men and supplies if Conant would stay by this 
remnant at Naumkeag. 

Accordingly, a patent granted March 19, 1627-28, was 
secured from the Plymouth Council for New England. 
It conveyed a tract of land extending three miles north 
of the Merrimac at its most northerly point and three 
miles from the Charles River at its most southerly part 
and westerly from the Atlantic Ocean to the South Sea 
(Pacific). Of the six patentees, five were gentlemen 
from Dorchester or its neighborhood. This patent 
encroached upon territory previously granted to Robert 
Gorges, out of which John Gorges had granted certain 
tracts to John Oldham and Sir William Brereton, but the 
Bay Company ignored their claims. 

In June, 1628, Capt. John Endicott, one of the pat¬ 
entees, sailed in the “Abigail” with a party of fifty or 
sixty persons to found a settlement. Endicott arrived 
at Naumkeag on September 6, and on landing was met 
by Conant and his associates. Endicott produced his 
commission and there arose some controversy on the 


26 


Boston and Its Story. 


part of the old planters and Endicott, but an agreement 
was effected through Roger Conant, and the settlement 
was named Salem, the Hebrew name for peace. 

The Puritan migration to Massachusetts Bay was 
recruited chiefly from two centers, viz., Dorchester, in 
the west of England, and Lincolnshire and other of the 
eastern counties. After Endicott was sent out by the 
Dorchester patentees in 1628, the scope of their plans 
was enlarged. They petitioned Charles I. for a charter of 
incorporation, which was granted March 4, 1628-29. 

Associated with the six patentees, as incorporators, were 
twenty others, representing interests that centered in 
London, and in Boston, Lincolnshire, respectively. The 
company was styled “The Governor and Company of 
Massachusetts Bay in New England.” The territory 
conveyed by the patent of the previous year was regranted 
to the new company, which became the first chartered 
colony in New England. 

In the spring of 1629 the Bay Company fitted out three 
ships, which conveyed some 400 persons and 140 head of 
cattle, etc., to Salem. Three ministers, viz., Rev. Samuel 
Skelton, Rev. Francis Higginson and Rev. Francis 
Bright, accompanied the expedition. A copy of the 
charter was sent to Captain Endicott, who was appointed 
Governor at Salem by the company. The company 
named seven persons, including the three ministers, to 
act with him as Assistants in governing the colony accord¬ 
ing to instructions from the company. 

In the company’s letter this is found: 

“ If, at the arrival of this ship, Mr. Endicott should 
be departed this life (which God forbid) or should happen 
to die before the other ships arrive, we authorize you, 



ST. BOTOLPH'S CHURCH, BOSTON, ENGLAND 

























































Old Boston, A Puritan Stronghold. 27 

Mr. Skelton and Mr. Samuel Sharpe, to take care of our 
affairs and to govern the people according to order, 
until further order.” 

The ships arrived in June, and Endicott, following 
instructions, promptly sent men “to inhabit in the Bay” 
in order to forestall Oldham who had laid claim to terri¬ 
tory there under R. Gorges’s patent. Accordingly, a 
settlement was effected in the peninsula of Mishawum in 
July, 1629. The settlers named it Charlestown, and 
proceeded to establish a town there which was the first 
place in New England to assume the town polity,— Salem, 
like Plymouth, being governed by a Governor and Council. 

Boston, on the river Witham, in Lincolnshire, was an 
important seaport. It appears to have been a principal 
stronghold of the English Puritans. About seventeen 
miles from Boston was Sempringham, a seat of the Earl 
of Lincoln, one of the leaders of the Puritan party. 

Mr. Isaac Johnson and Mr. John Humphrey were 
brothers-in-law of the Earl of Lincoln. Thomas Dudley 
was his steward, i. e., the manager of his estates. Simon 
Bradstreet, destined like Dudley to become prominent in 
the affairs of the Bay Colony, was a member of the earl’s 
household, as was the Rev. Samuel Skelton, who seems to 
have been his domestic chaplain. 

It is also clear that the Rev. John Cotton, Vicar of St. 
Botolph’s Church in Boston, the Rev. Thomas Hooker, 
who had been a refugee in Holland because of his 
nonconformity, young Roger Williams and Mr. John 
Winthrop of Groton, in the County of Suffolk, were on 
intimate terms with the Puritan coterie that was headed 
by the Earl of Lincoln. 

The Cambridge meeting so called, held on August 26, 


28 


Boston and Its Story. 


1629, which resulted in an agreement, signed there by 
twelve gentlemen, that they would in March ensuing go 
out to New England with their families in case the 
charter and government could be transferred thither 
legally, appears to have been the direct result of con¬ 
ferences at Sempringham between the representatives of 
the Dorchester and Boston groups of Puritans. 

It is quite likely that in the company sent out to Salem 
in 1629 the Rev. Samuel Skelton represented the Earl of 
Lincoln. At any rate, the first church organized in the 
Bay Colony, and perhaps the first Congregationalist 
Church in America, was organized at Salem, July 20, 
1629. Mr. Skelton was chosen minister, and Mr. Higgin- 
son, teacher. It is specifically stated by one who was 
present that the names of the candidates were written 
on pieces of paper, and that Mr. Skelton, having “more 
voices” (votes) was chosen minister. 

It would appear from Thomas Dudley’s letter to the 
Dowager Countess of Lincoln, written in March, 1631, 
that the plan of the leaders of the Puritan Exodus of 
1629-30 was to establish a fortified town, three leagues 
up the Charles River, and that they had determined 
before leaving England to name that town Boston. 

It is significant, therefore, that when they were obliged 
to “plant dispersedly,” that the Court of Assistants, while 
still in Charlestown, on September 7, 1630, ordered that 
“Trimountaine shall be called Boston.” Evidently they 
expected it to become the principal town in the Bay. 

It should be noted that the western men were a rela¬ 
tively well-organized group under the leadership of the 
“Rev. Mr. Warham and Mr. Maverick, with many godly 
families and people under their care, from Devonshire, 
Dorsetshire and Somersetshire.” The western people 


Massachusetts Company Chartered, 1629. 29 

had sailed on March 20, 1630, in two ships and arrived at 
Nantasket on May 30, that is, a fortnight before the 
arrival of the “Arbella,” with Governor Winthrop, at 
Salem. This furnishes further evidence that the exodus 
of 1630 was promoted by both the Dorchester and Boston 
groups of Puritans in the old country. 

The Puritan Exodus from England, 1630-40, was a 
carefully planned movement. 

In general it may be said that from the accession of 
James I. in 1604 it was the policy of the English king to 
promote the colonization of the regions in America, which 
were held to be possessions of the crown by virtue of the 
discoveries of the Cabots in 1497-98. 

The earliest attempts to establish colonies in South and 
North Virginia had the express permission of the reigning 
house, embodied in royal letters patent. King James I. 
refused “freedom of religion” to the Pilgrim Fathers, but 
promised not to hinder them from settling within the 
jurisdiction of the London Company that had effected, 
through its agents, the planting of Jamestown in 1607. 

The promoters of the Puritan Exodus, taking into 
consideration the untoward circumstances and mistaken 
measures that had signalized previous attempts at coloni¬ 
zation, sought to secure larger powers from King Charles 
than their predecessors had been able to secure from King 
James. 

Accordingly the Dorchester patentees, as has been 
stated, prevailed on the King, in March, 1629, to grant a 
charter of incorporation to them and their associates 
under the title of “the Governor and Company of Massa- 
chusetts Bay in New England.” 

The company was duly organized, with its seat in 
London. It appointed Endicott as Governor and certain 


30 


Boston and Its Story. 


others as Assistants to administer affairs at Salem, which 
did not become a town until after the transfer of the 
charter and the seat of government to Massachusetts in 
the summer of 1630. This transfer was made in pursu¬ 
ance of a definite policy to obviate the disadvantages of 
dual government that had so hindered the early develop¬ 
ment of the Virginia colony. 

Owing to the adoption of this farsighted policy, the 
company was enabled to secure the adhesion of a group of 
well-to-do and influential members of the Puritan party 
in England, mostly residents of Lincolnshire and East 
Anglia, who agreed at Cambridge, in August, 1629, to go 
out with their families, in March, 1630, to establish a 
permanent settlement that should afford a refuge to 
themselves and their harassed compatriots. 

The company was reorganized in London on October 
20, 1629, by the choice of John Winthrop as Governor, 
John Humphrey, Deputy Governor, and eighteen others 
as Assistants. Among these, who generally were termed 
Magistrates thereafter, were fourteen men who had been 
named as incorporators in the charter. It is more than 
probable that it was the intention of the company to 
establish a Puritan Commonwealth, beyond the reach 
of interference from the home government. At any rate 
they did so, and so fulfilled Sir F. Gorges’s prophecy 
regarding them. 

It has been estimated that some 1,500 persons, brought 
on twelve ships, found their way to the shores of Massa¬ 
chusetts Bay in the summer and fall of 1630. These 
immigrants were not only more numerous and comprised 
more home-seekers than any body' of English colonists 
that had sat down within the American possessions of 
the English crown, but they were better organized for 




GOVZRNOR WINTHROP, 1630 















































































Settlements in the Bay, 1630. 31 

economic and political growth and development; they were 
more united in their views and aims, and were more 
abundantly furnished with cattle and implements of 
agriculture, as well as with cannon and other munitions 
for defence. 

It was originally planned to build “a town fortified 
three leagues up the Charles River” for the colonists of 
1630. The mouth of the river was then supposed to be 
in the neighborhood of Nantasket, where the colonists 
from Dorchester, in the west of England, were forced by 
their obdurate shipmaster to land on May 30, 1630. The 
passengers on Winthrop’s ships, the first of which arrived 
at Salem, June 12 (old style), soon proceeded to Charles¬ 
town, whose site had been occupied and laid out by men 
from Salem in the summer of 1629. 

Evidently Charlestown (although it contained a Great 
House where Winthrop and several of the Assistants were 
lodged for some weeks) proved ill adapted for the building 
of “a town fortified.” At any rate, many people, who 
crowded the tents and shacks at Charlestown, fell sick 
from infectious diseases that had started on shipboard. 
Scarcity of springs of fresh water aggravated the situation 
within the Charlestown peninsula. 

“We were forced,” says Deputy Governor Dudley, “to 
change counsel and for our present shelter to plant dis- 
persedly, some at Charlestown, some at Boston, some 
upon Mistick, which we named Meadford (Medford), some 
of us westward on Charles River, four miles from Charles¬ 
town, which place we named Watertown; others of us two 
miles from Boston in a place we named Rocksbury 
(Roxbury); others upon the river of Saugus, between Salem 
and Charlestown, and the western men four miles south of 
Boston, at a place we named Dorchester, ... so they 
who had health fell to building.” 


32 


Boston and Its Story. 


Dudley had been a soldier in the Low Countries, and 
the selection, in December, 1630, of a site for “a fort to 
retire to, . . . if any enemy pressed us thereunto^ 

after we should have fortified ourselves against the 
injuries of wet and cold,” doubtless met with his approval 
and may have been largely owing to his insistence. This 
place, a mile or more from Watertown, was known as the 
Newe Towne, until by authority it was named Cambridge 
in 1638. 

The Indian name of the peninsula selected by the 
founders of Boston for their original settlement was 
Shawmut, signifying sweet or living waters, it is said. 
It may be noted in passing that a certain Indian medicinal 
spring in West Quincy bears the name of Shawmut to 
this day. Certainly the peninsula did abound in springs 
of fresh water, a fact that seems to have led Governor 
Winthrop and his immediate followers “to sit down” 
there instead of at Charlestown, where the water supply 
was inadequate. 

The inhabitants of Charlestown called the same penin¬ 
sula Trimountaine, because the three peaks of what is 
now called Beacon Hill confronted them across the river 
toward the south. 

The Assistants held a court at Charlestown on Septem¬ 
ber 7, 1630 (old style), at which it was ordered that “Tri¬ 
mountaine shall be called Boston; Mattapan, Dorchester, 
and the towne upon Charles River, Waterton.” Charles¬ 
ton or Charlton was so named from its situation on the 
Charles River by its settlers in the summer of 1629. 

Roxbury, frequently called Rocksbury in the early 
records, probably took its name from the numerous 
ridges of conglomerate, or Roxbury pudding stone, as it is 



VIEW OF BOSTON AND TRI-MOUNTAIN, FROM ROXBURY, ABOUT 1750. 



















































































Old Boston and Its Namesake. 33 

now called, found within its territory. Meadford (Med¬ 
ford) on the Mystic was distinguished for its meads or 
meadows. The Newe Towne, projected late in 1630, went 
by that name till 1638, when because it had become 
the seat of Harvard College its name was changed by 
authority to Cambridge. Saugus, the eighth of the 
Primary Towns of Massachusetts, bore an Indian name 
that was soon changed to Linn or Lynn. 

Boston derived its English name from Boston, an 
important port upon the River Witham that flows into 
the Wash, in Lincolnshire. Old Boston held a promi¬ 
nent place in Puritan annals. Thence the Separatists of 
Scrooby set out for Holland in 1608. It was a hotbed 
of Puritanism in the years just preceding the exodus of 
1630 to New England. Several of the most prominent 
leaders of the exodus, notably Mr. Isaac Johnson and 
Mr. John Humphrey, sons-in-law of the third Earl of 
Lincoln, were residents of Boston. Thence, too, came 
later on a group of men who exercised great influence in 
the affairs both of the colony and of Boston, among 
whom may be mentioned Thomas Leverett, who had 
been Mayor of Boston; Richard Bellingham, who had 
been its Recorder, and Atherton Hough, who had been 
an alderman there, as well as the Rev. John Cotton, 
who, in 1633, was ejected by Archbishop Laud from the 
pastorate of Old Boston’s most famous church, that of 
St. Botolph, the tutelary saint of sailors of the east of 
England. Thomas Dudley and Simon Bradstreet, who 
came out in 1630, were also from the neighborhood of 
old Boston. 

The word Boston is usually held to mean Botolph’s 
ton or town. In the fourteenth century such forms as 


34 


Boston and Its Story. 


Botolestone and Botolf’s tune occur. Lambarde, about 
1577, says the place was then called Bostonstow, though 
“commonly and corruptly called Boston.” 

It seems most probable that our Boston was so named 
in compliment to Mr. Isaac Johnson from Old Boston, 
who was one of the most influential and highly esteemed 
of the Magistrates who came out to New England in 1630. 
Johnson died three weeks after the town was named. 

The eight places enumerated by Dudley, that were 
planted disperseclly in the summer and fall of 1630, 
speedily assumed the town form of government for the 
management of their local affairs and may be fairly 
designated as the Primary Towns of Massachusetts. 
It was fortunate for their founders that their arrival was 
in the summer instead of late in the fall, as had been the 
case ten years before with the founders of Plymouth, 
else the former would not have been so much better 
“fortified against the injuries of wet and cold” than were 
the Pilgrim Fathers. 

The charter provided that the company, including the 
Freemen, should be convened in a Great and General 
Court (assembly) at quarterly intervals, and that the 
Governor, Deputy Governor and Assistants — to be 
chosen by the Freemen annually in Easter term, at the 
Court of Elections — might hold courts monthly or 
oftener if necessary. It is a remarkable fact that neither 
the General Court nor the Court of Assistants, which met 
frequently in the period 1630-35, can be shown to 
have exercised either a stimulating or shaping influence 
upon the development of the eight primary towns, if we 
except their selection of the site for the Newe Towne. So 
far as appears from the Colonial Records, begun in August, 
1630, or the records of the several towns, which begin in 


Primary Towns Self-organized, 1630. . 35 

most cases in 1634, each town was self-planted and self- 
organized, although the choice of the names of Boston, 
Dorchester and Watertown were confirmed by orders of 
the Court of Assistants. No definite grant of territory 
can be cited to any of the self-formed groups who “fell 
to building” as soon as the necessity of “planting 
dispersedly ” was realized. 

Each group of settlers appears to have selected a tract 
of land and thereupon, without challenge or instruction 
from superior authority, to have allotted house and garden 
plots, set apart certain tracts as planting fields within a 
common fence, and other tracts of unenclosed waste as 
common pastures, common meadows or common wood¬ 
lands. The earliest records of these groups, in which 
frequent use of the term “town” and “townsmen,” 
“ townes-meeting,” etc., is made, abound in references to 
the passage of penal orders (by-laws), the choice of 
overseers of the fields, herdsmen, allotters, “men chosen 
for the town’s occasions,” and the like. The formula 
used in recording what we should term a vote is usually 
“It is agreed and concluded,” “It is agreed by general 
consent” or “It is ordered.” 

In general, the admission of new townsmen or inhabi¬ 
tants, the division and allotments of lands, the choice of 
officials and committees and the passage of orders for 
the regulation of fields, fences and commons expressed 
the will of a general public meeting or primary assembly 
made up of townsmen, i. e., the men who were house¬ 
holders and had a right to plant in the common fields or 
send cattle to the common pastures. As to details of 
procedure and nomenclature, usage varied, but it is clear 
that at the outset all the towns whose records are avail¬ 
able were organized as simple, agrarian communities on a 


36 


Boston and Its Story. 


free democratic basis. The development of the three 
essential organs peculiar to the town polity, viz., the town 
meeting, town orders, or by-laws, and selectmen, appears 
to have taken place more or less contemporaneously in the 
Primary Towns before 1635. The suffix by found in the 
names of many places in the east of England is of Danish 
origin. It is synonymous with the Old English ton. 

March 3, 1635, the General Court passed an order giving 
statutory sanction to measures and methods that had 
already been developed by custom in the Primary Towns. 

The most significant provisions of the order in question 
were as follows: 

“The freemen of every town, or the major part of them, 
shall only have power to dispose of their own lands and 
woods, to grant lots, and to make such orders as may 
concern the well ordering of their own towns; as also to lay 
mulcts and penalties for the breach of their orders, not 
exceeding xx s; also to choose their own particular officers 
as constables, surveyors for the high ways; and the like.” 

Subsequently the electoral franchise in the towns was 
extended “to all Englishmen twenty-four years of age, of 
honest and good conversation, being Rated at twenty 
pounds estate in a single Country Rate, and that have 
taken the Oath of Fidelity to this Government.” The 
date of this is uncertain, but it conforms closely with an 
order of the General Court of 26 May, 1647, except that 
the latter contains no property qualification whatever. 
Thus the electoral franchise in the towns was more 
liberal than that of the Freemen, who alone could vote 
for deputies and magistrates, the freemanship by an 
order of the General Court, passed in 1631, being 
restricted to church members. 

The order of 1635 served as a sort of general town code 


Town and Township. 


37 


in accordance with which grants of common land and of 
town privileges were made for the establishment of new 
towns. After 1635, when the settlement of the back coun¬ 
try became active, the main provisions of the order were 
embodied in the organic law in 1641, when The Bodye of 
Liberties was adopted as the result of a referendum. 

Town and township are used as synonymous terms 
in The Bodye of Liberties, which provide that: 

“The freemen of every Towne or Towneship shall have 
full power to choose yearly or for lesse time out of them¬ 
selves, a convenient number of fitt men to order the 
planting on prudentiall occasions of that Town according 
to Instructions given them in writeing,” etc. 

The territory of a town ultimately came to be called a 
township, and town came to signify the members of the 
town community in their corporate capacity. Thus the 
terms “ town ” and “ township ” in Massachusetts acquired 
the general meaning which they have to-day throughout 
the United States. The meaning which originally attached 
to those terms in England was just the reverse. 

A township of land as ordinarily understood to-day by 
surveyors throughout the country means a tract six miles 
square and containing 23,040 acres. In 1735 the Gen¬ 
eral Court granted three such “townships of land” to the 
Town of Boston. When in 1635 the General Court began 
to make grants of land for the establishment of new land¬ 
ward plantations, it was ordered: 

“that there shall be a plantation at Musquetaquid 
(Concord), and that there shall be 6 miles of land square 
to belong to it.” 

Whether this use of six miles square as the area of a 
township was novel or original is an interesting question 
whose answer we do not know. 


38 Boston and Its Story. 

While the terms town and township occur quite often 
in the earliest records, town meeting and selectmen were 
not in common use till later. Thus, although the records 
show that men were chosen in 1633 in Dorchester and 
in 1634 in Charlestown, Cambridge, Watertown and 
Boston to perform the duties of selectmen, as we under¬ 
stand them, still it is probable that the first citable 
instance of the use of the term “Selectmen” in the records 
of a town is found in an order passed “At a General 
Town’s Meeting” in Boston, on March 4, 1642. 

As appears from the rates levied on the several towns, 
Boston’s primacy in ratable property was not established 
till 1637, although in the interval, 1630-36, it ranked 
either first or second. Yet the pressure of population 
and the need of more land for agricultural purposes were 
sooner felt in Boston than elsewhere. This was doubt¬ 
less owing to the fact that Boston was practically the 
seat of government and to its advantageous position 
in respect to the ship channel, which rendered it the 
commercial center of the colony from the first. 

In acreage Boston was one of the smallest of the 
towns. Its area hardly exceeded 750 acres, in all proba¬ 
bility. Moreover, there was very little wooded land 
within its limits. In 1632 Boston was granted by the 
General Court a neck of land at Pullen Point (Winthrop), 
and was given “liberty to fetch wood from Dorchester 
neck (South Boston) for 20 years.” In 1633 it was given 
the right “to fetch wood continually” from a part of 
Noddle’s Island, the whole of which in 1637 was granted 
to Boston. Judging from the present area of Chelsea, 
Winthrop, Revere, Braintree, Quincy, Randolph, Hol¬ 
brook, Brookline and East Boston, whose original sites 
were granted to Boston “for its enlargement” in the 


Boston’s Fields and Commons. 39 

period 1632-37, the Boston town meeting in 1639 — the 
year before Braintree was set off as a separate town — 
exercised jurisdiction over fully 43,000 acres of land, 
of which hardly two per cent lay within the Boston 
peninsula. To-day, despite all the territory that has 
been added to Boston since 1804, by annexation, the 
total area of Boston is placed at only 30,666 acres. 

By 1635 Boston had at least four planting fields within 
the Neck, besides one on Noddle’s Island and another at 
Muddy River (Brookline). It had already acquired fifty 
acres of The Common by purchase for £30 from Black- 
stone, and it is manifest from entries in the records that 
it had other common pastures outside the Neck, e. g ., 
at Pullen Point Neck and at Muddy River. Charles¬ 
town and Dorchester, and probably Watertown and 
Cambridge, had also laid out planting fields and set 
apart common pastures. 

Boston’s two tracts of common within the Neck, 
viz., the fifty acres purchased from Blackstone in 1634 
and the common next to Roxbury Gate, together with 
her commons laid out at Braintree, Muddy River 
and Pullen Point Neck, must have amounted to over 
4,000 acres. 

By 1795 all of Boston’s common lands and all of her 
commons outside the Neck had been disposed of by grant 
or sale; so that the town began the nineteenth century 
with only 2,218 acres of hard land, including Noddle’s 
and Breed’s Islands. After the Neck lands had been filled 
in and sold off about the middle of the last century (with 
the exception of Blackstone and Franklin squares, contain¬ 
ing 4.83 acres all told), “The Common” became the sole 
and shrunken remainder of Boston’s ancient commons. 
To-day it amounts to 48.40 acres, or, with the Public Gar- 


40 


Boston and Its Story. 


den, to 72.65 acres. The Common is valued at $46,000,000 
and the Public Garden at $9,000,000. 

Like Boston, the other Primary Towns long ago divided 
up or sold their common lands and commons. None of 
the districts annexed to the city has added appreciably to 
the commons of Boston. Boston’s communal holdings 
of strictly agricultural lands passed into the hands of 
private owners earlier than was the case in the other 
Primary Towns. The Town of Boston in 1645 transformed 
the allotments of arable, meadow, etc., within and without 
the Neck, within a common fence, as well as all house 
plots and gardens, into holdings in fee simple, and Boston’s 
formative, agrarian stage of development came to an 
end and was forgotten. So completely forgotten that 
most modem scholars have overlooked its significance, as 
an episode that links up the development of the primitive 
Massachusetts town community with the old Saxon tun or 
ton and Danish by communities established by the invaders 
of Britain from the sixth to the eleventh centuries, which 
were later overgrown and masked by the manorial and 
feudal systems that were largely developed after the 
Norman Conquest. 

The rapid passage of Boston through its preliminary, 
agrarian stage of development was accelerated and inten¬ 
sified by the greater diversity and complexity of Boston’s 
civic and social life, attributable to her primacy among 
her sister towns by reason of the fact that she was at once 
the most populous, the foremost politically, being the 
capital, and the foremost commercially, because of her 
possession of superior port facilities and her location at the 
gateway to the interior. It was inevitable that Boston 
should become the metropolis of New England. 



THE HISTORIC OLD ELM ON THE COMMON, UNDER WHICH CITIZENS OF BOSTON MET IN 
THE EARLY DAYS AND CONSIDERED MATTERS PERTAINING TO THEIR INTEREST. 








Charlestown the First Town. 


41 


Unusual interest attaches to the records of Charlestown, 
both because it was the first settlement in Massachusetts 
organized as a town, and because its early records are 
more complete than those of any other of the Primary 
Towns. The first entry in the Charlestown records is as 
follows, but it should be noted that “in Anno 1628” 
should read “in Anno 1628-29” since the settlement took 
place early in July, 1629 (new style): 


“The Inhabitants yt first setled in this place & brought 
it into the denomination of An English Towne was in 
Anno 1628 as folios: vizt. 


Ralph Sprague 
Richd Sprague 
William Sprague 
John Meech 
Simon Hoyte 


And Mr. Bright 


Abra-. Palmer 
Walter Pamer 
Nicholas Stowers 
John Stickline 
Tho. Walford 
Smith, yt lived 
heere alone before 


Mr. Graves who 
had charge of the 
Company of Pat- 
tentees with whom 
hee built the 
great house this 
yeare for such of 
the sd Company as 
are shortly to come 
over wch aftr- 
wards became the 
Meeteing house. 


Minister to the Companies Servants: 


“By whome it was Jointly agreed & concluded yt this 
place on the North side of Charles River by the Natives 
called Mishawum shall henceforth from the name of 
the River bee called Charlestowne wch was also confirmed 
by Mr. John Endicutt Governour.” 

“It is Jointly agreed & concluded by the Inhabitants 
of this Towne yt Mr. Graves doe moddle, & lay out the 
forme of the Towne with Streets about the Hill wch was 
accordingly done and aprooved of by the Governo 1 .” 

“It is Jointly agreed & concluded yt each Inhabitant 
have A two-Acre Lott to plant upon, & all to ffence in 
Common wch was accordingly by Mr. Graves measured 
out unto them.” 


42 


Boston and Its Story. 


“Uppon which — Ralph Sprague & othrs began to build 
theire houses, & to prpare ffenceing for theire Lotts wch 
was aftrwds sett up almost in a Semi-Circular forme on 
the South and South East side of yt field laid out to them, 
wch lies scituate on ye Northwest side of the Towne 
Hill.” 

It is worthy of note that Mr. Graves was an engineer 
and that the lines of his original “moddle” (model or 
town plan) are still discernible on the maps of the 
Charlestown District, which was annexed to Boston in 
1874. 

In the records for 1630, a fence order is found, and also 
the following, concerning Charlestown’s first planting 
field within a common fence: 

“Agreed & concluded by the Inhabitants of this Towne 
yt the great Corne field shalbee on the Eastside of ye 
Townehill, the ffence to Range allong even with those 
dwellings where Water Pam(ers) house stands & so along 
towards ye necke of Land, & yt to every Inhabitant 
dwelling within the necke bee given two Acres of Land 
for an houseplott & two Acres for every Male yt is able 
to plant; . . . & yt ye Cattle bee kept without upon 
the Maine.” 

In 1632, the inhabitants chose a man to “keepe the 
Milch Cattle of this Towne in A Heard without the 
necke of Land upon the Maine till the end of Harvest.” 

In the records for 1633, the following occur: 

“Agreed & concluded the 9- of Jann r by the Inhab¬ 
itants of this Towne, yt Nicholas Stowers keepe the Towne 
heard the yeare ensueing, & yt hee drive the heard forth 
to theire food in the Maine every morning & bring them 
into towne every evening, & to have 50 bushells of Indian 
Corne for keeping the Milch Cowes till Indian harvest 
bee taken in, hee is also to have the benefitt of keepeing 
such othr Cattle as shall come into Towne this SumnT:” 


Emergence of Selectmen, 1633-34. 43 

“Agreed & concluded (in April) by the Inhabitants 
of this Towne that the sume of tenn pounds bee collected 
of the sd Inhabitants, & bee paid in to John Winthrop, 
Esqr., & Governor, & the rest of the Gen 1 , interested 
in the Great house built in Anno 1628 by Mr. Graves 
& the Companies servts wch is for the purcha(se) of the 
sd house, now the publicke meeteing house of this Towne, 
all wch was accordingly done.” 

The Great House had been built in 1629 to serve as the 
Governor’s residence. Because of Winthrop’s settlement 
in Boston, it became unavailable for its original purpose. 
After serving as a meeting house for two years, it was 
sold for £30 and turned into a tavern. It was finally 
burnt down in the fire which destroyed Charlestown, 
June 17, 1775. 

It is noteworthy that the inhabitants of Charlestown 
for the first five years met together whenever it was 
necessary to take action on the affairs of the town. In 
“9ber” i. e., November, 1634, “Towne meeting” emerges 
in the records for the first time. But frequent meetings 
of the “Townsmen in Generali,” entailed “great trouble 
and charge of the Inhabitants,” so they jointly agreed 
that eleven men should, for the ensuing year, “entreat 
of all such businesses as shall concerne the Inhabitants of 
this Towne the choice of officers excepted.” This agree- 

i 

ment was signed by thirty-three men, who bound themselves 
to submit to what the eleven chosen men “or the greatest 
part of them shall conclude.” Thus on February 10, 
1634, selectmen (although not so denominated in the 
records) were chosen in Charlestown for the first time. 

Officers charged with the duties of selectmen (although 
that term did not definitely emerge till 1642 and then in 
the Boston records), were chosen in other towns as early 


44 


Boston and Its Story. 


as: (1) October 8, 1633, in Dorchester; (2) February 3, 
1634, in Cambridge; (3) August 23, 1634, in Watertown; 
and (4) October 6, 1634, and probably earlier in the 
same year in Boston. The number, tenure and designa¬ 
tion of such officers varied greatly; but seven and nine 
became general. 

It would appear from the records that Charlestown 
established its East Field in 1629, and its first common 
for pasture in 1630. By 1638, the town had at least six 
common fields, besides common hay grounds or meadows, 
and one or more commons in which rights of “cow com¬ 
mons” or “cow’s grass” were recognized as a species of 
negotiable property, appurtenant to a homestead. 

The founders of Boston were fortunate in their choice of 
a site. The moving cause of the migration of Governor 
Winthrop and his immediate following from Charlestown 
appears to have been the urgent necessity of finding 
springs of fresh water. They found such springs at the 
foot of Trimountaine, favorably situated both on the 
south of the present State street, in Spring Lane, and 
north of State street in the vicinity of Dock Square. 
Accordingly, the first buildings in the town were erected 
near those points as centers, facing the Great Cove 
which made up from the inner harbor and indented the 
northeast side of the peninsula. So the new town was 
started a little back from the shore of the Great Cove, 
but was conveniently placed in relation to the ship channel. 
This advantageous location proved an inestimable asset 
to Boston in its development as a maritime town. 

Early visitors to Boston were inclined to dilate upon its 
natural advantages. Thus, Wood, who visited it soon 
after its settlement, says its “situation is very pleasant 
. . . It being a Necke and bare of wood they are not 


Boston in 1650 . 


45 


troubled with three great annoyances of Woolves, Rattle¬ 
snakes and Musketoes.” At the same time he notes 
that “ their greatest wants be Wood and Medow-ground 
being constrayned to fetch their building timber and 
fire-wood from the Hands in Boates, and their Hay in 
Loyters” (lighters). No wonder as the place began to 
fill up rapidly with newcomers, the General Court made 
generous grants of noncontiguous territory to Boston 
“for its enlargement.’’ None the less, it was well for 
the first settlers that they did not have to expend their 
energies upon clearing their Neck of forests and Indians. 

Following is a condensed description of the harbor as 
Neal saw it in 1719: 

“This Harbour is made by a great company of Hands 
whose high Cliffes shoulder out the boistrous Seas. . . . 
It is a safe and pleasant Harbour within, having but one 
common and safe entrance, and that not very broad; 
there scarce being roome for three ships to come in board- 
and-board at a time, but being once within there is roome 
for the Anchorage of 500 Ships.” 

Certain of Boston’s characteristics, about 1650, are 
set forth by Johnson in his “ Wonder-Working Providence ,” 
thus: 

“The chiefe Edifice of this City-like Towne is crowded 
on the Sea-bankes, and wharfed out with great industry 
and cost, the buildings beautifull and large, some fairely 
set forth with Brick, Tile, Stone, and Slate, and orderly 
placed with comly streets, whose continuall inlargement 
presages some sumptuous City. . . . Good store of ship¬ 
ping is here yearly built, and some very faire ones: both 
Tar and Mastes the Countrey affords from its own soile; 
also store of Victuall both for their owne and Forreiners- 
ships who resort hither for that end: this Town is the 
very Mart of the Land; French , Portugalls, and Dutch 
come hither for Traffique.” 


46 


Boston and Its Story. 


Again, Johnson says: 

“Boston, Charles-Town, Salem, and Ipswitch, our 
Maritan Towns began to encrease roundly, especially 
Boston, the which of a poor country village, in thrice 
seven years, is become like unto a small City, and is in 
election to be a Mayor Town suddainly, chiefly encreased 
by Trade by Sea.” 

Johnson probably alludes to the petition of Boston in 
1650, to be incorporated as a city, a request that was not 
granted by the General Court. Not till 1822 did Boston 
become “a Mayor Town,” although projects for making 
it one were brought forward in 1650, 1659, 1667, 1708, 
1744, 1762, 1784, 1791, 1804, and 1815. The plans for 
incorporation were mostly rejected by the people,— so 
strong was their preference for their town polity. 

In general, the towns of 1630, in their ground plan, 
conformed with the type introduced by the Angles and 
Saxons into Britain from Germany. There was a central 
or nuclear aggregation of homesteads arranged in close 
lines about an open space, or on both sides of a long street, 
and a complex of outlying fields and open lands held in 
common. 

True to their inherited instincts and traditions, the 
first settlers of Boston placed their houses on both sides 
of a street leading up from the waterfront. The western 
or upper part of this Water or Market street as it was 
called (now State street) widened out into a market 
place, including about three-fourths of an acre — which 
itself opened into the High street that ran north to 
Roxbury along the line of the present Washington street. 

As the extant town records contain no entries prior to 
September 1, 1634, and the records of .the Colony are 
silent on the subject, we cannot tell just when or how the 


Boston Common. 


47 


lands of Boston Proper were first allotted. But the Boston 
records from 1630 to 1640 are mostly concerned with 
grants of house lots, garden plots, and allotments in the 
planting fields and commons; the regulation of fences 
and the pasturage of swine and cattle. It is clear that 
by the end of 1634-35 there were four common fields 
enclosed for planting within the Neck, since on February 9 
the town meeting ordered that all fences should “be 
made sufficient before the second day of the second 
month/’ i. e., April 2, 1635, and be looked to by overseers 
for the four fields that were named. 

Already, on November 10, 1634, it had been ordered 
by the town that five men named should “make and assess 
a rate of £30 to Mr. Blackstone . . . and to make a rate 
for the young cattle and cows Keeper at Muddy River” 
(Brookline). The “rate to Mr. Blackstone” was to 
defray the purchase of fifty acres that the General Court 
had granted him to hold forever, in April, 1633. Thus 
the town acquired title to what became known as “The 
Common.” 

It is noteworthy that the first appropriation by the 
town for a public building was authorized on February 
23, 1635, when it was “agreed that there shall be a little 
house built, and sufficiently paled yard to lodge the cattle 
in of nights at Pullen point neck” before the 14th day of 
April, 1635. 

The Common is the most conspicuous visible memorial 
within our borders of the primitive conditions that marked 
the beginnings of the “poor country village that in thrice 
seven years became like to a small City.” It is at once 
the most impressive and best preserved of our memorials. 
The very fact that it has been preserved with so little 
change from early Colonial times, through all the mar- 


48 


Boston and Its Story. 


vellous growth of Boston, in territory, in population, in 
wealth, and importance as a port, and as the center of 
political and civic activities, enhances the veneration 
and affection that attach to the Common as a unique 
memorial and a priceless possession. 

The Common is a visible reminder of the circumstances 
under which the town was settled and organized. Boston’s 
ancient shore line was obliterated long since by made 
land. Centry Hill (Beacon Hill) has been reduced to 
one-half of its original height, and bears hardly a trace of 
its three-peaked summit that suggested the name of 
Trimountaine for the whole peninsula. Mill Hill (Copp’s 
Hill) has been much cut down, and the Fort Hill has 
utterly disappeared, but The Common remains, as it ever 
has been, a distinctive feature of the ground plan of 
Boston. 

The sky line and shore line of the Boston peninsula 
have been radically modified, owing to the exigencies of 
growth and progress. The original coves have swal¬ 
lowed up a large part of the original hills. Thus the old 
Mill Pond or North Cove was filled in, beginning in 1804, 
with material from Beacon Hill. About 1825, Copp’s 
Hill contributed of its substance to the filling of Com¬ 
mercial and Fulton Streets in the Great Cove, and fifty 
years later, Fort Hill, occupying thirteen acres, was 
razed to the street level, and the gravel used to fill in 
the remainder of that cove inward from the line of the 
present Atlantic Avenue. 

According to official figures, the reclaimed land in 
Boston Proper on January 1, 1894, was 1,018 acres, 
resulting from the following operations, viz., at North 
Cove, begun 1804, 70 acres; West Cove, begun 1803, 
80 acres; South Cove, 1806-43, 186 acres; Back Bay, 


Boston’s Old Coves. 


49 


1857-94, 570 acres; Great Cove, 1823-74, 112 acres. 
The probable original area of hard land in Boston Proper 
was about 750 acres. The whole area of the town, 
according to the first official survey ordered by the State 
in 1794, was 783 acres. 

Here and there within the area adjacent to the present 
business section of the city, traces of the original highways 
and lanes of Boston Proper can be made out by an anti¬ 
quarian. But within the last hundred years, owing to 
the extension of streets into the reclaimed districts, the 
general street plan of Boston has been radically trans¬ 
formed. Changes in the underground plan of Boston 
have also been numerous and radical, owing to the build¬ 
ing of sewers, the extension of water mains, and the con¬ 
struction of tunnels and subways. 

Two circumstances tended to enchance the importance 
of the infant settlement of Boston, viz., its accessible 
location, in relation to the other plantations, and the fact 
that Governor Winthrop had his home in it. 

Thus, in his “New England’s Prospect,” Wood, who 
visited Boston while it still had “rich corne-fields and 
fruitefull Gardens,” says 

“this Towne although it be neither the greatest, nor the 
richest, yet it is the most noted and frequented, being the 
Center of the Plantations where the monthly Courts are 
kept. Here likewise dwells the Governour.” 

On the landward side, Boston was accessible from 
Dorchester and Roxbury by the High Street that ran 
through the Neck from the Market Place to the mainland. 
This street or road was nearly two miles in length. 

To reach Boston from the other towns, one had, till 
1661, either to cross one or more tidal rivers, or to follow 


50 


Boston and Its Story, 


the ship channel; consequently, the question of terminal 
facilities for handling water-borne traffic had to be met. 

Just when or where the first piers were built cannot be 
exactly stated, but it is clear that there was a common 
landing place on the shore of the northern sector of the 
Great Cove as early as 1634. 

The first entry in the extant records of Boston is dated 
September 1, 1634, and sets forth the action of “the 10 men 
for managing the affairs of the town.” It forbids the 
“laying of stones and logges near the bridg and landing 
place,” under penalty of 5 shillings unless they were 
“marked by a pole or a beacon.” One of the ten was 
appointed to see that the order was carried out. 

The landing place was on the banks of a creek that 
made up as far, perhaps, as the foot of the present Brattle 
street. This secondary cove, which, till it ceased to exist, 
was generally known as the Town Dock, was not finally 
filled in until the extension of Faneuil Hall Market was 
effectuated in the period 1823-26. In the early days 
access to the Town Dock from the Market Place was had 
through Shrimpton’s Lane on the line of the present 
Exchange Street. The bridge alluded to in the foregoing 
order may have been over the head of the dock, or possibly 
one of the bridges over the Mill Creek which connected the 
cove with the Mill Pond. North and South Margin 
streets and Causeway street approximately represent, 
at present, the original shores of the Mill Pond, which 
took its name from the tidal grist mills on its borders. 
Mill Hill, later called Copp’s Hill, was early utilized for 
the erection of wind mills, as were some of the other hills 
also. 

The terms North End and South End are still in common 
use. Originally they served to designate the regions 





















































Early Bridges and Ferries. 


51 


separated by the Mill Creek,— the North End being 
really an island and not the tip of the peninsula. 

Mill Creek, following the line of the present Blackstone 
street, was spanned by two bridges: One, the Mill Bridge, 
was a fixed bridge, where Hanover street now runs, and 
the other, a swing or drawbridge, connected the North 
and South Ends on the line of what is now called North 
Street. 

It is noted in the records of the Court of Assistants, 
dated 14 June, 1631, that 

“Edw: Converse hath undertaken to sett up a fiery 
betwixte Charlton & Boston, for which hee is to have ij d 
for every single person, & Id. apeece if there be 2 or more.” 

This ferry seems to have been maintained down to 1786, 
when it was superseded by Charles River Bridge, 1,503 
feet long, which was opened with much ceremony June 17, 
1786. It was the first bridge erected to connect Boston 
with the mainland. 

The tariff of tolls for the ferriage of passengers from 
Boston to Charlestown and Winnissimett as established 
by the Boston Town Meeting in February, 1635, was for 
one person 6d.; for two persons 6d.; above two persons, 2d. 
a person. Two years later, the ferry tolls to Noddle’s 
Island were fixed at 2d. for a single person; 3d. for two 
persons and Id. apiece for more than two. 

In the absence of precise information as to the capacity 
of the ferry craft of primitive Boston, one is inclined to 
wonder what means were taken to transport “the dry and 
gelt beasts,” the calves, goats, etc., to the summer pas¬ 
tures at Pullen Point, Muddy River, etc. It seems 
probable, however, that our forefathers had a pretty 
effective system of scows or lighters for transporting cattle 


52 


Boston and Its Story. 


as well as hay and wood. The Boston terminus of the 
ferry to Charlestown and Winnissimett was on the Charles 
River, at the base of the Mill Hill and at the foot of the 
present Prince street. 

The first shop in Boston was located on what is now the 
northeast corner of State and Washington streets, i. e., it 
was at the head of the Market Place, in whose immediate 
neighborhood the business or financial center of Boston 
has remained from that day to this. 

The shipping business of Boston in early times centered 
around the Town Dock. The Town was liberal in its 
allotment of “cove lots,” and in the privileges of wharfing 
granted to their owners, who included the principal men 
of the town. Mention is made from time to time of 
warehouses belonging to the Town on the waterfront, but 
the improvement of that front, excepting the erection of 
batteries for defensive purposes, was largely left to private 
initiative. 

In 1646 the Town leased the Town Dock to an associa¬ 
tion of prominent wharf owners and merchants. In 
1649, the reversion of the lease, which was to run eighty 
years from 1646, was sold by the Town to James Everill 
for £6 16s. 10d. per annum for the use of the free school. 
It appears that the lessees spent £818 in improvements 
of the dock in the period 1644-49. 

In 1710 the lease of 1649 was surrendered to the Town 
on condition that the Town pay the lessee £14 per annum 
till the expiration of the lease in 1726. In 1713-14 the 
Town Dock was let for £28. In 1785 it was claimed on 
behalf of the Town that it had expended nearly £2,000 
towards filling in the dock. 

In March, 1822, just before the first city charter was 
adopted, a committee of the Selectmen was appointed to 


Boston Pier. 


53 


take legal advice on the subject of the Town Dock and 
the Town’s rights in it. The new market-house improve¬ 
ment, 1823-26, led to the filling up of what remained of 
the Town Dock, and a City Wharf was established upon 
the shore to the east of the market district. 

It does not appear that the Town ever engaged in any 
extensive improvement of the waterfront of the Great 
Cove or elsewhere. The erection of Boston Pier (Long 
Wharf) from the tongue of land at the foot of King street 
(State street) early in the eighteenth century was a 
private undertaking. It added greatly to the facilities 
of the port and to the fame of Boston on both sides of 
the Atlantic. 

In 1710 the Town authorized six associates to build a 
pier. It was stipulated that it should provide: (1) a 
public way thirty feet on one of its sides for the use of the 
inhabitants and others forever; (2) at about the middle 
of the wharf, a gap sixteen feet wide “covered over, for 
boats and lighters to pass and repass ”; and (3) that the 
head of the wharf should be left free for the town to place 
guns on if the need of defence should arise. Such were 
the conditions on which “the Freeholders and other 
Inhabitants of the Town of Boston” conveyed their rights 
at the March meeting in 1710 in the wharf and flats “unto 
low water mark” to the projectors of the Long Wharf. 

The erection of Long Wharf was a notable achievement, 
and served to shift the center of the shipping interest 
from the Town Dock to the foot of King street. In a 
sense, the Long Wharf was an extension of King street 
to the ship channel, so that there resulted a direct road¬ 
way from deep water into the Market Place. 

Daniel Neal, who visited Boston in 1719, characterized 
Boston as “the most flourishing Town for Trade and 


54 


Boston and Its Story. 


Commerce in English America/’ He.quotes official 
returns of the “ Collectors of His Majesty’s Customs” to 
show that “ there was 24,000 Ton of Shipping cleared 
annually” at Boston. 

In this connection the following extract from Neal is 
of interest: 

“ At the Bottom of the Bay is a noble Pier, 1800 or 2000 
Foot long, with a Row of Ware-houses on the North 
Side, for the Use of Merchants. The Pier runs so far 
into the Bay, that Ships of the Greatest Burthen may 
unlade without the Help of Boats or Lighters. From 
the Head of the Pier you go up the chief Street of the 
Town, at the Upper End of which is the Town House or 
Exchange, a fine piece of Building, containing besides 
the Walk for the Merchants, the Council Chamber, the 
House of Commons, and another spacious Room for the 
Sessions of the Courts of Justice. The Exchange is sur¬ 
rounded with Booksellers Shops, which have a good 
Trade. There are five Printing-Presses in Boston, which 
are generally full of Work, by which it appears, that 
Humanity and Knowledge of Letters flourish more here 
than in all the other English Plantations put together; 
for in the City of New York there is but one Bookseller’s 
Shop, and in the Plantations of Virginia, Maryland, Caro¬ 
lina, Barbadoes, and the Islands, none at all.” 

The estimated population of Boston in 1719, according 
to Neal, was “ about 20,000.” This was an overesti¬ 
mate as the first census of Boston, made in 1722, after 
an epidemic of smallpox, found only 10,567 inhabitants, 
of whom 4,549 were north and 6,018 south of Mill Creek. 
Recent deaths from smallpox amounted to 844. 

Neal’s observations w T ere both complimentary and 
informing. Thus he says: 

“The Town of Boston lies in the Form of a half Moon 
round the Harbour, the surrounding Shore being high, 


Boston’s Streets in 1719 and 1916. 


55 


and affording a very agreeable Prospect. A considerable 
Part of the Peninsula upon which the Town stands, is 
not yet built upon; but ye.t there are at present twenty- 
two Allies, thirty-six Lanes, forty-two Streets, and in all 
together about three thousand Houses, several of which 
for the Beauty of the Buildings may compare with most 
in the City of London. The Town is well paved, and 
several of the Streets as wide and spacious as can be 
desired.” 

At the present writing, February, 1916, the paved and 
accepted streets of Boston amount to 2,357 in number, 
with an aggregate length of 593.62 miles, 94.67 miles of 
streets being accredited to the City Proper. 

Booming Boston began early. Mr. William Burgis, 
an enterprising bookseller, in 1723 published a “South 
East View of Ye Great Town of Boston,” which is char¬ 
acterized as “the Capital of New England, and Mistress 
of America.” 

“New England,” he says, “is become one of the most 
Delightful Countrys in the World; the Winter being 
now Moderate and pleasant by Reason of the Clearing 
of the Woods; in the West and North West parts of the 
inland Countrys, the air is Exceedingly Clear and pleas¬ 
ant, Perfectly well Agreeing with the English Constitu¬ 
tions; for which Reason the Gentlemen of the West 
India Islands often go thither to Recover their Healths.” 

Burgis’s view shows the location of no less than 
fourteen ship yards in the town. 

The natural advantages of Boston as a seaport and rail¬ 
road center in our own day were comprehensively set 
forth by the City Surveyor of Boston, in 1893, as follows: 

“Boston is the only direct seaport outlet, by position 
and other great natural advantages resulting from its 
excellent and sheltered harbor, of all the section of country 


56 


Boston and Its Story. 


comprised within the territory of the New England 
States, the Great Northwest, and the Canadian Provinces 
lying north and east of the Great Lakes. 

“The original shore line of the city proper so favored 
railroad approaches, that within a circle described by a 
radius of less than half a mile around the business center 
of the city are located the great terminal stations of the 
Fitchburg, the Boston & Maine, the New York, New 
Haven, & Hartford, the Boston & Albany, and the New 
York & New England railroads (on lands reclaimed from 
the sea), so that it may be said that these great arteries 
connecting the city with the territory drained by these 
trunks, their branches, feeders, and connecting lines, 
penetrate to the very heart of the business community; 
an advantage of no mean importance in measuring the 
situation from the standpoint of the commercial competi¬ 
tion of our nearest neighbors. 

“Thus to inland commerce, the city proper occupies a 
concentric location much resembling the hub of a wheel, 
from which these trunk lines of railroad radiate like spokes, 
while to international trade the same section lies in an 
eccentric position to the great ship basin, a combination 
which, for rapid and economic distribution, could not 
well be excelled in this age of concentration and economy 
of time and space.” 

The fact that Boston is still the capital of Massachusetts, 
as it has been throughout most of its history, gives it a 
unique position among the great cities of the country. 
The first meeting of the Great and General Court of the 
Bay Company was held in Boston “for the establishing 
of the government” on October 19, 1630. Yet the only 
formal action tantamount to making it the capital, that 
can be adduced, is the following entry in the record 
of a Court of Assistants held on October 3, 1632, which 
reads: 

“It is thought by generall consent that Boston is the 
fittest for publique meetinge of any place in the Bay.” 


Governor Must Live in Boston. 


57 


The following order of the General Court, dated May 
23, 1655, may be construed, perhaps, as a recognition 
that Boston had became the capital of the Commonwealth 
by the process of natural selection: 

“It is ordred that who soever shall be chosen Gouno r , 
shall with the first oppertunity make his abode in Boston, 
or some adjacent towne or place within foure or hue 
miles of Boston, & shall there contynue his abode 
dureing the tyme of his goument.” 

Both Charlestown and Newe Towne were aggrieved 
by Governor Winthrop’s choice of Boston as his place 
of residence. After Winthrop was left out of the governor¬ 
ship, in 1634, the General Court met rather frequently 
at Newe Towne. Party spirit ran high in 1637, when the 
Court of Elections was held under a tree in the present 
Cambridge Common. The election that resulted in the 
recall of Vane and the election of Winthrop was almost 
riotous. Sewall states in his Diary that his father walked 
forty miles in order to vote for Winthrop. 

Although Cambridge endeavored to thwart Boston’s 
manifest destiny, the records show that by far the greater 
number of courts of election were held at Boston in the 
period 1635-49. 

Meanwhile, owing to changes in the system of judi¬ 
cature and the establishment of counties, Boston had 
become the seat of the highest or appellate court within 
the Colony. In 1636, quarterly courts, to be presided 
over by at least one of the Magistrates, were established 
for the trial of minor civil and criminal causes at Ipswich, 
Salem, Newe Towne and Boston. In addition, four 
“Great Quarter Courts,” consisting of “the Governor 
and the rest of the Magistrates,” were appointed to be 
held at Boston. Probably the sessions of these courts, 


58 


Boston and Its Story. 


as well as those of the General Court, were held in the 
meeting house of the First Church of Boston, which was 
located on the Market Place. 

In 1643 the whole jurisdiction was subdivided into four 
shires, for military as well as judicial purposes, and 
Boston became the shire town of Suffolk County, and 
has remained so ever since. 

In 1659 the first Town House of Boston was completed. 
It was a combination of town, market and court house, 
and soon became the recognized seat of the Colonial 
Government. It was the seat of the town government 
until the town offices were removed to Faneuil Hall, 
which was erected at the head of the Town Dock in 1742. 
The Town House occupied most of the area now covered 
by the “Old State House” at the head of State street. 

The settlers of Boston made the market place a prom¬ 
inent feature in their town plan. State street of our day 
appears at first to have been called interchangeably the 
Water Street and the Market Street. Its widest part, 
covering hardly three-quarters of an acre, where it opened 
into the main street or highway to Roxbury, soon became 
known as the market stead, or market place. Allusion to 
it as the Market Place is found in the Town records as 
early as 1636. From 1633, when the General Court 
ordered that a market should be kept in Boston every 
Thursday, till 1733, when the town voted that a market 
house for the middle of the town should be erected in 
Dock Square, the original market place was the political 
and business center of Boston. 

On the south side of the place, or just below it, Governor 
Winthrop had his residence for a time. On the same side 
the meeting house of the First Church, in which town 
meetings were held for many years, stood where the 



FIRST MEETING HOUSE. OLD BRICK CHURCH, WASHINGTON STREET, AT HEAD OF STATE STREET. 

This church was located first on State Street, corner Devonshire Street ; was removed to location above, where a building of 
wood was erected. Upon its destruction by fire it was rebuilt with brick. 






















First Town House, 1658 . 


59 


Brazer Building now stands. On the southwest comer 
Capt. Robert Keayne, perhaps the leading merchant and 
money lender of the town, had his house and garden. 
The first shop built in Boston is said to have stood on the 
northwest corner of the market place, and “down the street 
were the lots of Rev. John Wilson (pastor of the First 
Church) and seven others.” Westerly, although not 
immediately adjoining the market place, was the prison 
yard, at the head of the present Court square. 

In 1640 the meeting-house was sold and a new one built 
on the site now occupied by the Rogers Building, just west 
of the market place. Some persons wished to put the 
new meeting house on ‘The green,” near the site of the 
present Old South Church, but, as Governor Winthrop 
tells us, “Others viz. the tradesmen especially who dwelt 
about the market place desired it might stand still near 
the market, lest in time it should divert the chief trade 
from thence.” Even to this day the center of the chief 
trade has scarcely shifted from its original seat. 

Captain Keayne, who died in 1656, bequeathed £300 
to the town for a market house and a conduit to be erected 
in the market place “in the heart of the towne,” conceiving 
that the market house would — 

“ be usefull for the country people that come with their 
provisions for the supply of the towne, that they may have 
a place to sitt dry in and warme both in cold raine and 
durty weather & may have a place to leave their corne or 
any other things safe that they cannot sell, till they come 
again . . . also to have some convenient room or too for 
the Courts to meete in . . . and so for the Townes men & 
Commis-ioners of the Towne.” 

So the first Town House was built in 1657-58 out of the 
proceeds of Keayne’s bequest and from funds privately 


60 


Boston and Its Story. 


subscribed, which amounted to nearly £400 more. The 
house, 66 feet long and 33 feet wide, was of wood, and was 
set upon twenty-one pillars 10 feet high, on the site of the 
present Old State House. In its structural features, as 
well as the uses to which it was put, the Town House 
conformed closely with the type then common in the old 
country. The space under the structure within the pillars 
was used as an exchange — “chambers” being provided 
upstairs for the courts and for town officials. It continued 
to be the seat of the town government till 1742, when 
Faneuil Hall superseded it as a market and town house. 
By order of the General Court one-half the cost of repairing 
it in 1667 and 1671 and of rebuilding it after it was burned 
in 1711 and again in 1747 was borne by the Province, the 
other half being equally shared by the County and the 
Town. The state offices were removed to the new State 
House in 1798. From 1830 to 1841 the Old State House 
served as the City Hall. 

It is remarkable how slightly the civic center of Boston 
has shifted from its original location. Its situation since 
the founding of the town may be summarily stated as 
follows: (1) For one hundred and twelve years, i. e., 
1630-1742, the seat of the government of the town was 
on or in the Market Place, and for the last eighty-three 
years of that period in the Town House; (2) for eighty 
years, i. e., 1742-1822, it was in Faneuil Hall, at the head 
of the Town Dock; (3) from 1822-30 the offices of the a 
Mayor and City Council were in the Old Stone Court 
House, known, too, as Johnson Hall, on School street; 
(4) from 1830-41 the Old State House, at the head of 
State street, served as the City Hall; (5) from 1841 till 
the present day (about seventy-five years) the seat of the 
city government has remained in School street, and for 



WASHINGTON STREETS. 






































Beginnings of Court Square. 


61 


over fifty years in the present City Hall, which was 
dedicated on September 18, 1865. 

In other words, speaking broadly, in the two hundred 
and eighty-six years since Boston was settled, the seat of 
government was for two hundred and three years where 
it originally struck root, within the limits of the original 
Market Place; for eighty years it was in the Faneuil 
Hall Market House, and for eighty-three years it has 
been on School street. It has always been in or near the 
financial center, and its migratory movements have all 
taken place within a circle of hardly more than 300 
yards’ radius. The present offices of the Mayor and City 
Council are 850 feet ne'arer the site of the first Town House 
than were the Selectmen’s Rooms in Faneuil Hall. 

There is only one lot of land belonging to the City in 
Boston Proper that has been continuously devoted to public 
uses since it was set off from common land in the early 
days of the town. It is covered by the Court street end 
of the present City Hall Annex, and was originally included 
within the Prison Yard. On October 3, 1632, the Court 
of Assistants ordered, “That there shall be a house of 
correction and a house for the beadle built at Boston.” 

Inasmuch as the order by the same Court “That a 
market shall be kept at Boston upon every Thursday” is 
dated March 4, 1634, it is probable that the Prison Yard 
was older than the Market Place. The Prison Lane ran 
westerly from the Market Place on the line of the present 
Court street. The prison was hardly more than 100 
yards distant from the Market Place. 

In 1754 an office for the Probate Court was built in the 
Prison Yard. In 1767 that office was demolished and a 
courthouse, first opened in 1769, was erected on its site. 
From that date till the “Old Court House” was demolished 


62 


Boston and Its Story. 


r^T 


in 1911, to provide a site for the present City Hall Annex, 
there was always a courthouse on this site. The Old 
Stone Court House, so called, on School street, was 
another building, erected in 1810. 

But Keayne’s Town House, as it was sometimes called, 
remained the seat of the General Court from 1659 till 
1798, when the present State House became the seat of 
the State Government. In 1787 the town bought “Fos¬ 
ter’s Pasture,” at the corner of the present Boylston and 
Tremont streets, with the intention of presenting it to 
the State as a site for a new State House. The Foster lot 
was ultimately incorporated within the limits of The 
Common, and in 1794-95 the town bought Governor 
Hancock’s pasture on Beacon Hill, and presented it to 
the State. Accordingly, the new State House was erected 
there in the interval 1795-98. 

In 1803 the city acquired by purchase, from the State 
and the counties of Suffolk and Norfolk, all right and title 
to the Old State House. From 1803 to 1829 the Old 
State House was leased for business and other offices. 
In 1830 it was fitted up as the City Hall, and was occupied 
as such till 1841, when the building was again abandoned 
to business purposes. In 1881-82 business offices were 
again banished from the Old State House; the structure 
was restored, and it has been maintained ever since as 
a historical monument. A portion of it is now utilized 
as a station of the Washington Street Tunnel, but the 
upper floors are occupied by the Bostonian Society as a 
museum. 

For a century and a half immediate access to Boston 
across the Charles River was had only by means of ferry¬ 
boats. Meanwhile, the town of Cambridge built a bridge 
at the cost of £200 across the Charles River from Cam- 


Boston’s Bridges, 1786 - 1915 . 


63 


bridge to Little Cambridge, so called, which later became 
the town of Brighton. This bridge, which was completed 
in 1662, was known as the “Great Bridge,” and was the 
only traffic bridge across Charles River until the opening 
of the Charles River Bridge from Charlestown to Boston 
that was completed in 1786. So, for nearly one hundred 
and twenty-five years prior to 1786, wheeled vehicles from 
the towns north of the Charles could reach Boston only 
by way of the Great Bridge and the road through Muddy 
River (Brookline), which connected it with the road from 
Roxbury into Boston. The site of the Great Bridge from 
Cambridge is now occupied by the North Harvard Street 
Bridge, in the Brighton district. 

The Charles River Bridge, opened in 1786, was a toll 
bridge, and the property of a private corporation. So, 
too, was the West Boston Bridge that was opened for 
travel in 1793, and the Canal or Craigie Bridge, that was 
opened in August, 1809. 

In 1858 the three bridges named were made free 
bridges. All crossed the Charles River, and served to 
greatly facilitate access from the landward towns to 
Boston. 

At present there are 154 bridges in Boston, of which 45 
are maintained by railroad corporations. The main¬ 
tenance of 64 is met wholly by the City of Boston, which 
shares the expense of maintaining 42 more. There are 
also 3 bridges maintained by the Metropolitan Park 
Commission. In the fiscal year 1914-15, the maintenance 
of Boston’s bridge service cost $301,712, and $195,373 
were expended for bridge construction. 

In respect to ferry service, it may be added that tolls 
and other income for the year 1914-15 amounted to 
$105,913, while the expenditures amounted to $293,671. 


64 


Boston and Its Story. 


Foot passengers carried on the ferries numbered 6,024,967, 
and vehicles, 979,352. It should be noted that East 
Boston (Noddle’s and Hogg islands) is connected with 
the Boston tunnel and subways by a tunnel under the 
harbor. Passengers carried through this tunnel numbered 
17,218,206 in the same year, yielding revenue from tolls of 
$148,410. On February 7,1916, the collection of ferry tolls 
from passengers through the East Boston Tunnel ceased. 

The City of Boston maintains two ancient public 
markets whose rents have been a source of considerable 
revenue for nearly three generations. While Boston was 
a town it made several attempts to reduce the cost of the 
necessaries of life. Aside from improving its market 
houses, since Boston became a city, in 1822, it has 
attempted little and accomplished less towards lowering 
the cost of living within its borders. 

The records of Boston abound in orders intended to 
prevent forestalled and regrators from exacting unreason¬ 
able prices for provisions, but the frequent reiteration of 
such orders and the nature of the complaints which led 
to their passage indicates that they were more honored in 
their breach than by their observance. 

The Selectmen of Boston were accustomed periodically 
to prescribe the weight of the loaf of marketable bread 
according to the price of grain and the kind of bread. We 
find the assize of bread proclaimed by the Selectmen as 
late as 1798. 

During most of the eighteenth century Boston bought 
grain at wholesale and sold it at retail to the people of 
the town; thus on March 14, 1715, the Town authorized 
the Selectmen to (1) borrow money for the purchase of 
3,000 bushels of Indian corn, 500 bushels of rye and 500 
bushels of wheat and (2) to procure convenient places 



THE CHARLES RIVER ESPLANADE, LOOKING WESTWARD FROM THE WEST BOSTON 























The Town Granary, 1728 - 95 . 


65 


for storing it. Three months later the Town voted to 
apply the proceeds of the sale of certain common lands, 
amounting to £1,500, to “the purchasing of corn and 
other provisions as the Town shall direct.” Whatever 
loss might accrue was to be made good by the Town so 
that the fund should not be exhausted. By 1774 the fund 
was reduced to about £150. 

In 1728 the Town voted to build “a Granary in the 
Common near the Alms House,” and appropriated £1,100 
for the purpose. Accordingly a granary capable of holding 
12,000 bushels of grain was erected in The Common. It 
remained in charge of the Committee for the Buying of 
Grain till 1783, when the committee was discontinued. 
The committee, which was chosen annually by the Town, 
set the retail price of the grain, which was sold by the 
Keeper of the Granary, who was accustomed to present 
his accounts to the Town annually in the month of March. 

The Town voted in 1795 to sell the Granary and the 
land on which it stood. It is said that the building was 
removed in 1809 and turned into a hotel. 

In 1741 the Town chose a committee of three “to invest 
£700 in Cord wood, at the most reasonable rate, to be 
laid in some convenient places at each end and in the 
middle of the Town; in order to supply the inhabitants 
as the necessities of the season shall call for.” Other 
measures for securing fire wood at reasonable rates for 
the benefit of the people could be cited. 

The year 1779 was one of great distress and scarcity 
and signalized by rapid depreciation of the currency and 
ruinous enhancement of prices. The authorities of Boston 
took unusual measures to regulate the prices of provisions 
and almost all other commodities as well. Thus the 
Town voted “ That shops or stalls be opened in the several 


66 


Boston and Its Story. 




parts of the Town for supplying the inhabitants with 
butchers’ meat”; and the Selectmen were directed “to 
publish an Advertisement acquainting the Publick that 
Slaughter Houses are provided by the Town for the 
accommodation of the People in the Country who may 
send their Creatures to this Market for the Supply of the 
Inhabitants.” The price of flour was set at £30 per 
hundred weight; and that of fire wood at from £13 10s. to 
£23 per cord according to quality. The Selectmen were 
empowered to build fish stalls near the market place, to 
fix the prices of fish, and to make “arrangements with 
those that may be ready to supply this Market with Fish.” 
In addition, the Granary was set apart as a magazine 
or general store for the sale of groceries and provisions at 
regulated retail prices to the inhabitants. 

Speaking broadly, Boston has always had a system of 
public markets. The first settlers laid out their town 
around a market place, in which a market house was 
erected in 1657-58, at a cost of £700 provided by 
Keayne’s bequest and private contributions. 

In 1733 market houses were erected in Dock Square 
and at the North and South Ends. In 1737 a mob 
demolished the Center Market, in Dock Square, and 
those at the North and South Ends were soon discon¬ 
tinued on recommendation of the Selectmen. But the 
principal market place remained at the head of the Town 
Dock, where Peter Faneuil, an opulent merchant, offered 
in 1740 to build a market house if the town would pro¬ 
vide for its maintenance and regulation. The Town 
grudgingly accepted the offer by a majority of seven in 
a total vote of 727. To secure that majority the friends 
of the market had to resort to sharp practice and debar 
delinquent taxpayers from voting. Market regulations 



FANEUIL HALL, "THE CRADLE OF LIBERTY." 




























•r* 




# 




‘ 




























Public Market Houses. 


67 


were frequently a bone of contention, both before and 
after the erection of Faneuil Hall. 

The new market house, which contained a large hall 
and offices for the town officials, was opened in 1742. It 
was named Faneuil Hall. This structure, which was of 
brick, was two and a half stories high and 100 feet long by 
40 feet wide. Access to the market space, under the hall, 
was had on all sides through archways of brick. The 
building was rebuilt in 1762-63, after its destruction by 
fire; and in 1805 its width was doubled and a third story 
added, at a cost of over $50,000. After the New Faneuil 
Hall Market, generally known as the Quincy Market, was 
opened in 1826, the market under Faneuil Hall was dis¬ 
continued for many years. In 1858 it was reopened and 
its stalls have been leased to market men, from time to 
time, ever since. 

Both the Quincy and Faneuil Hall market houses 
belong to the enclosed type of market house, and contain 
permanent stalls, with cellars underneath. The Quincy 
Market, so called, is a granite edifice, two stories high. 
It is 535 feet in length by 50 feet in width. The second 
story is occupied by offices, most of which, e. g., that of 
the Produce Exchange, are leased for other than market 
purposes. The original cost of the building (on which 
about $241,600 have been spent for alterations and repairs) 
was $150,000. 

This market improvement, which was completed in 
1826, gave Boston the finest market house in the country, 
at a time when the inhabitants of the city numbered only 
some 56,000 souls. The undertaking, which met with 
considerable opposition, involved the purchase and demo¬ 
lition of numerous stores and wharves and the filling in of 
the Town Dock and adjacent flats. As a result the city 


68 


Boston and Its Story. 


r* 


acquired: (1) a spacious and well appointed market 
house, covering 27,000 feet of land; (2) six new streets 
and the enlargement of a seventh, including 167,000 feet 
of land; (3) salable building lots covering 26,000 feet; 
besides (4) flats and dock and wharf rights to 142,000 
square feet. 

The financial results of the Quincy Market improve¬ 
ment, 1825-1911, may be summarized as follows: 

Receipts.$6,620,653 

Expenditures. 2,474,191 


Excess of receipts.$4,146,462 

Receipts include $1,178,753 from sales of land; and 
expenditures include $1,240,281 for land and buildings, 
in addition to. $241,665 for repairs and alterations. 

The financial results of the erection of Faneuil Hall 
and the maintenance at intervals of a public market 
under it cannot be set forth with the same completeness 
as for the Quincy Market House, which was originally 
authorized as “an extension of Faneuil Hall Market.” 
No authoritative statement of the cost of Peter Faneuil’s 
gift to the town in 1742 has come down to us; and a 
clear statement of the cost of rebuilding after the fire 
of 1761 — mostly out of the proceeds of a public lottery — 
cannot be found. However, it appears that the gross 
receipts of the hall and market amounted to $570,474 
against total expenditures of $255,289 for the period 
1890-1911, yielding a net income of $315,185. 

Counting receipts and expenditures of the two 
market houses we have the following aggregates: Re¬ 
ceipts, $2,398,007; expenditures, $577,213; net income, 
$1,820,794. 




OLD STATE HOUSE, EAST FRONT. STATE STREET VIEW, 

The building on the right is the Old Lion Tavern, showing the starting of the Mail Coach for New York, leaving Boston every two week 
























The Old State House. 


69 


For the five years 1910-11 and 1914-15 receipts from 
the two market houses have averaged $123,343 and 
expenditures $12,249. 

The Old State House is more intimately associated 
with the history of Boston than any building now stand¬ 
ing. Faneuil Hall was rebuilt in 1762, and the Old South 
Meeting House was built in 1729; each of them was the 
scene of important events during the Provincial and 
Revolutionary periods; but neither of them played any 
part in the history of the Colonial Commonwealth or of 
the Dominion of New England. 

Although Faneuil Hall became the seat of town govern¬ 
ment after the town’s books and papers were taken there 
in October, 1742, by vote of the Town, the term Town 
House clung to the structure, which was often called the 
Court House and less frequently the State House even 
before the Revolution. Thus in 1770 the General Court 
when convened at Cambridge protested that the writs 
had specified that it was “to be held at the Town House 
in Boston.” Inasmuch as the most significant events of 
which it was the scene related to the government of the 
Commonwealth or the Province, we prefer in this con¬ 
nection to designate the building as the Old State House. 

The Old State House was the scene of many momentous 
and stirring events. Thither Sir Edmond Andros was 
escorted by “the Guard of the 8 Company es” on his 
arrival December 30, 1686,— and there he ruled as Gover¬ 
nor of the Dominion of New England. Thither he was 
taken on April 18, 1689, after his capture to meet the 
leaders of the rebellious people. From its balcony “a long 
declaration” justifying the deposition of Andros was read. 
The Old State House was the headquarters of the “Council 
for the Safety of the People and the Conservation of the 


70 


Boston and Its Story. 


Peace/’ which assumed the reins of government April 20, 
1689. There on May 22 was held the Convention of 
Delegates from the towns that prevailed on the “Old 
Magistrates/’ with Simon Bradstreet as Governor, to 
“accept the care and Government of the people of the 
Colony according to the rules of the Charter . . . 

until by direction from England there be an Orderly 
Settlement of Government.” 

On May 14, 1692, Sir William Phips arrived from 
England bringing the Charter of William and Mary, in 
accordance with which Massachusetts and Plymouth 
were merged in their Majesties’ Province of Massa¬ 
chusetts Bay. Sewall notes in his diary “Monday, May 
16, eight Companies and two from Charlestown guard 
Sir William and his Councillors to the Townhouse where 
the Commissions are read and the Oaths taken.” 

Throughout the Provincial period the Governor and 
Council appear to have held their sessions in the chamber 
at the east end of the Old State House. The Council 
Chamber figured frequently in ceremonious occasions. 
The newly arrived governors were inducted into office 
there, and state funerals, receptions and festivities were 
held there. It would appear that at times there was a 
balcony or gallery, opening from the Council Chamber, 
that overlooked the head of King Street where the people 
were wont to congregate at times of public interest or 
excitement. 

From this balcony important events were made known 
to the public. Thus in 1699, we read that “Drum is 
beat and Allowance and Disallowance of the Acts is pub¬ 
lished.” Acts of the Provincial Legislature were subject 
to approval of the Privy Council in England, it should 
be remembered. In May, 1702, the accession of Queen 



THE MASSACRE OF PATRIOTS BY BRITISH TROOPS, 1770, DIRECTLY IN 

FRONT OF OLD STATE HOUSE. 

The spot is marked by paving stones arranged in a circle on State Street, opposite 
Exchange Street. 




































. 












Trials in Old State House. 


71 


Anne was proclaimed here. In 1709 “the Act of Parlia¬ 
ment regulating Coin is published by Beat of Drum and 
Sound of Trumpet.” On May 16, 1766, the news of the 
repeal of the Stamp Act was announced from here. 
The “Boston Massacre” on March 5, 1770, was within 
sight of the east balcony of the Old State House. Here 
in May, 1774, the last Royal Governor, Thomas Gage, 
was proclaimed. On July 18, 1776, the Declaration of 
Independence was proclaimed “with great parade and 
exultation from the balcony at the east end. . . . 

The ceremony was closed with a proper collation in the 
Council Chamber.” April 23, 1783, the Proclamation of 
Peace was announced here by the Sheriff of Suffolk 
County. 

In 1780 John Hancock of Boston, the first Governor 
of the State of Massachusetts, was inducted into office in 
the Old State House. In 1789 President Washington 
reviewed the procession in his honor from a balcony 
erected in front of the center window of the Hall of 
Representatives at the west end of this building. 

Mention should be made of some of the notable 
judicial proceedings which took place within the Old State 
House. The last of the courts for the trial of persons 
accused of witchcraft in 1692-93 were held here, but the 
Boston jury’s verdict was always “Ignoramus.” In 1699 
Captain Kidd was examined here by Governor Bellomont 
on the charge of piracy. Here in 1761 James Otis made 
his famous argument against the Writs of Assistance. 
John Adams, who heard him, wrote “every man of a 
crowded audience appeared to me to go away, as I did, 
ready to take arms against writs of assistance. . . . 

Then and there the child Independence was born.” 

In 1769 four men, who had resisted a press gang of 


72 


Boston and Its Story. 


the “Rose” frigate and killed the officer in command of 
the gang, were tried here for piracy and murder. The 
court decided that it was a case of justifiable homicide. 
In 1770 Captain Preston, who was in command of the 
soldiers concerned in the “Boston Massacre/’ was tried 
here and fully acquitted, although two of his soldiers 
were found guilty of manslaughter. 

While the Council Chamber was the headquarters of 
the Governor and Council during the Provincial period, 
the House of Representatives had its chamber on the 
same floor. In the House of Representatives more or 
less constant opposition to the Governor and Council was 
kept alive. In 1765 Sam Adams appeared for the first 
time as a Representative from Boston. In February, 
1768, the House passed a bill ordering letters to be 
written to the other colonies, “with respect to the im¬ 
portance of joining with them in petitioning His Majesty 
at this time.” This was one of Adams’s measures. The 
English government demanded that it should be rescinded, 
but the House, by a vote of 92 to 17, refused obedience. 
In September, 1768, news came that the home govern¬ 
ment had determined, on account of previous riots, to 
send British troops from Halifax and Ireland to Boston. 
As the Legislature was not expected to meet for a year, 
the Town Meeting of Boston took action and voted to 
hold a convention on September 22, of delegates from all 
the other towns, “in order that such measures may be 
concerted and advised, as His Majesty’s service and the 
peace and safety of his subjects in the province may 
require.” 

“It must be allowed by all,” says Hutchinson, “that 
the proceedings of this meeting had a greater tendency 
towards a revolution in government than any preceding 



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Withdrawal of Troops, 1770. 


73 


measures in any of the colonies. The inhabitants of one 
town alone took upon them to convene an assembly 
from all the towns, that, in everything but in name, 
would be a House of Representatives.” 

The fleet with the soldiers arrived at Nantasket, 
September 28. There were a thousand men under 
command of Lieutenant Colonel Dalrymple. One regi¬ 
ment pitched its tents on The Common, the others found 
shelter in Faneuil Hall for the night. “ The next day 
Governor Bernard ordered the doors of the Town House 
to be opened, except that of the Council Chamber; and 
such part were lodged there as Faneuil Hall rooms would 
not accommodate. The Representative room was filled 
in common with the rest.” 

In May, 1769, the Legislature as soon as it was organized 
resolved that “An armament by sea and land investing 
the metropolis and the military guard with cannon pointed 
at the very door of the State House, where this Assembly 
is held, is inconsistent with that dignity, as well as that 
freedom, with which we have a right to deliberate, 
consult and determine.” They refused to transact 
business while the troops remained, and the Governor 
adjourned the Legislature to Cambridge. Finally, two 
regiments were sent back to Halifax, the 14th and 29th . 
remaining here. 

It was in the Council Chamber of the Old State House 
that Lieutenant Governor Hutchinson and the Council 
were finally induced by the determined stand of the 
delegation from the town meeting, headed by John 
Hancock, to advise the removal of the regiments from the 
town to the castle. Here it was that Adams replied when 
to appease the people Colonel Dalrymple agreed to order 
one regiment to the castle, “If the Lieutenant Governor 


74 


Boston and Its Story. 




or Colonel Dalrymple or both together, have authority 
to remove one regiment, they have authority to remove 
two, and nothing short of the total evacuation of the 
town by all the regular troops will satisfy the public mind 
or preserve the peace of the province.” “ After a little 
awkward hesitation it was agreed that the town should 
be evacuated and both regiments sent to the castle.” 
This, in March, 1770, was the first evacuation of Boston 
by the British. 

The founders of Massachusetts were Englishmen born 
and bred but they were Puritans who had been engaged 
in the incipient stages of the fateful struggle between 
the crown and the hierarchy on the one hand and the 
Parliamentary Party on the other. In 1629 the outcome 
of the contest as to the objects for which the Puritans 
were striving, i. e., reform in church and state, seemed 
desperate. In the self-same week Charles I. dissolved the 
Parliament, that had no successor till 1640, and granted 
the charter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. 

The Puritan migration was born of struggle and fore¬ 
boding, but the emigrants who were harried out of England 
by the absolutist king and the subservient Laud were 
courageous and resourceful as well as far sighted. Their 
dream of a theocratic state composed of like-minded 
believers and based on imaginative interpretation of 
the laws and institutions of the primitive Israelites proved 
illusory. Their strenuous endeavors to realize their 
dream ended in disaster, for Charles II. revoked their 
charter and compelled them to exercise a toleration 
which they abhorred and to allow freedom of worship to 
Anglicans, Baptists and Quakers, whom they disliked 
or despised. 

But in the realm of constructive politics, the founders 



OLD STATE HOUSE. 





















































































The Forefathers Founded a Commonwealth. 75 


of Massachusetts builded better than they knew. In 
that field they achieved great and abiding results. They 
transformed a trading company into a Puritan Common¬ 
wealth that endured for nearly half a century. It finally 
crumbled under the continued assaults of its enemies on 
both sides of the Atlantic, after the Restoration of the 
Stuart dynasty resulted in the degradation of the Common¬ 
wealth of Massachusetts Bay into a Crown Colony. But 
the expatriated Englishmen who were driven into the 
New England wilderness succeeded in laying there the 
foundations on which the free State of Massachusetts 
was subsequently raised. The framework and constitu¬ 
tion of government under which we live is full of ghosts 
that have never been completely laid since first they 
began to walk in the fateful half-century, 1634-84. 

The constitutional history of Massachusetts, in whose 
development Boston and the citizens of Boston played 
ever a conspicuous part, may be summarily divided 
into periods, as follows: 

la. The Colonial Period, under the Charter 
1629-1685. This period was signalized: (1) by the sub¬ 
version of the charter by the Magistrates, 1630-1633; 
(2) by the Uprising of the Freemen in 1634, when having 
secured their rights they instituted the representation of 
the towns by Deputies, and entered upon a prolonged 
contest with the oligarchy, in which the party of popular 
rights finally triumphed, having meanwhile secured the 
institution of the secret ballot, proxy voting, primary 
elections and the referendum, as well as the adoption of 
the Bodye of Liberties, in 1641, as a part of the organic 
law to supplement the charter. 

l b. Inter-Charter Period, 1686-1692. This 
period covered the denial of the rights formerly enjoyed 


76 


Boston and Its Story. 




under the charter, the suppression of representative 
institutions, the arbitrary rule of Andros as Royal 
Governor from 1686 till 1689 when the colonists rose 
in revolt, deposed Andros and established a revolutionary 
government that continued by permission of the Crown 
till 1692. 

II. The Provincial Period, 1692-1774. This was 
signalized, under the Charter of William and Mary, by 
constant bickering with the appointees of the Crown, and 
after 1765,-when the Stamp Act was passed, by remon¬ 
strances verging on resistance to the repressive measures 
of King and Parliament — some of which were directly 
aimed at the Town of Boston. 

III. The Revolutionary Period, 1775-1780. 
This was marked by armed rebellion, adhesion to the 
Declaration of Independence, the institution of a revo¬ 
lutionary government by the Council and House of Rep¬ 
resentatives, elected annually by the people, 1775-1779. 

IV. The State Period, 1780-1916. During this 
period the State of Massachusetts, which joined the 
Federal Union in 1788, has been governed under the 
forms and principles laid down in the Constitution of 
1780, and the amendments thereto. 

The formative stages of the evolution of government 
in Massachusetts from its primitive beginnings, 1629, till 
the adoption of the present Constitution in 1780, are 
indicated in more detail in the Appendix. 

The circumstances surrounding the Puritan pioneers 
on their arrival in what the Admiral of New England 
had prophetically characterized as “the Paradise of these 
parts,” were distinctly favorable to innovation and 
experimentation in political and economic as well as in 
ecclesiastical matters. Although their territory was on 



K\NG’S CHAPEL, TREMONT AND SCHOOL STREETS 















































. 



















Innovations Introduced by the Forefathers. 77 

the confines of civilization they did not have to fight the 
Indians in order to gain a foothold. The Atlantic Ocean 
separated them from Whitehall and Lambeth, whose 
occupants, moreover, became increasingly preoccupied 
with men and measures in the British Isles. As frontiers¬ 
men they had a virgin soil in which to plant, without 
interference from meddlesome neighbors. 

But they were frontiersmen of an unusual sorb. It 
was the spirit of the men who planted the Bay Colony 
(a spirit developed by self-examination, by trial and by 
sacrifice) that impelled them to depart from ways to 
which they had been accustomed rather than the strange 
conditions in which they were placed, that chiefly conduced 
to render their experiments memorable and thankworthy. 

Necessity forced the settlers of 1630 to become inventive. 
On their arrival, in June, at Salem, they found it neces¬ 
sary to share their provisions with Endicott’s people and 
to despatch a ship to England for more. Therefore it 
became necessary, even before they were forced “ to change 
counsel and plant dispersedly,” for them to set free the 
indented servants who had been sent out in considerable 
numbers to provide laborers for the plantations. It 
became a matter of course for the Primary Towns to make 
grants of land to such of “the inferior sort” as were “able 
to plant.” The adoption of this policy inured then and 
later to the economic welfare of the colony — in contrast 
with certain of the proprietary colonies which suffered 
from the development of a peasantry of poor whites. 

The Bay Company introduced not a few rather startling 
innovations, when one considers the antecedents of the 
immigrants who composed it. They were enabled to make 
history because of their willingness to cut loose from tradi¬ 
tion. They instituted a system of land tenure involving 


78 


Boston and Its Story. 


a radical departure from the feudalistic system of lease¬ 
holds and rentals to which they had been accustomed, 
even though some of them had been Lords of Manors 
before they became emigrants. The title to land was 
vested in the Company; but in the early grants and 
allotments, whether by the General Court or by the 
Primary Towns, comparatively few traces of land rents 
are to be found. Grantees were treated as shareholders 
at first, and before long became owners in fee simple of 
their holdings and were free to devise them by will. So 
landlordism with its train of suffering and bitterness that 
have hardly been eradicated as yet in Great Britain was 
avoided by the founders of Massachusetts. It was a 
fortunate thing for their successors that free trade in land 
was so soon established. Democratic tendencies had 
freer and fuller scope in the chartered colony of Massa¬ 
chusetts Bay, where there was no peasant tenantry, than 
in the proprietary colonies, e. g., New Netherland and 
Maryland, in which the manorial system largely prevailed. 

Having established freedom of purchase and sale of 
lands and tenements, the forefathers naturally proceeded 
to institute a simple system of public records of their own. 
Infant Boston, like its sister towns, devolved the duty 
of recording land grants and transfers within its borders 
upon its own chosen officials. Therein is found the germ 
of our later system of registration of deeds and wills. 

Town customs in due time hardened into statute law. 
Witness the remarkable action of the General Court, in 
1639, when it was 

“Ordered and decreed: That there bee records kept of 
all wills, administrations, & inventories, as also of the 
dayes of every marriage, birth, & death of every pson 
w h in this Jurisdiction. 


Marriage Solemnized by the Magistrates. 79 

It: To record all mens houses & lands, being certified 
vnder the hands of the men of every towne, deputed for 
the ordering of their affaires. 

Item: To record all the purchases of the natives.” 

The act set forth a scale of fees for entry of the various 
items by the man “chosen to record things” and further 
provided “such townes to bee fined 40s as shall faile to 
send up their certificates.” 

Massachusetts was the first modern Commonwealth 
to require that a public record should be made of “every 
marriage, birth and death.” 

The Massachusetts squirearchy was of a totally different 
sort from their Britain contemporaries. The squire, like 
any other landowner, had to hire his help — for none of 
his townsmen owed him suit or service. Moreover, the 
squire could not present a church living to anyone. 
As a member of a church society he could vote to call a 
minister or a teacher but he had no advowsons at his 
disposal. Even a settled minister had no estate in his 
office, and was liable to dismissal under the prevalent 
congregational system of church organization and 
government. However exalted their social position, 
parsons and squires, as such, in Massachusetts were never 
accorded special political privileges over tradesmen, 
farmers or shipmasters. 

The newly arrived immigrants “were not willing to 
bring in the English custom of ministers performing the 
solemnity of marriage,” so on August 18, 1630, some 
three weeks before Shawmut was named Boston, “the 

Governor married Captain Endicott to - Gibson,” as 

Winthrop himself tells us. Governor Bellingham rather 
scandalized his fellow Magistrates in 1641, when he 
carried the doctrine of secular marriage so far as to marry 





80 Boston and Its Story. 

himself! But the feature of his unusual performance 
which excited most criticism was the fact that he had 
failed to comply with the statute requiring publication 
in his place of residence of his intention of marriage a 
fortnight in advance of the event. 

The earliest as well as the later records of the Company, 
of Boston, and the other towns disclose a repugnance to 
the terminology of the Church Calendar. Although the 
charter provided that the quarterly courts of the Com¬ 
pany should be held on certain days in the terms of 
Hilary, Easter, Trinity and Michaelmas forever — the 
records of all such courts from 1629 onwards are set forth 
in purely secular phraseology as to days of the month 
and week. It was English usage then, as now, to specify 
the year of the sovereign’s reign in which an act, decree, 
or what not was passed, but regnal years are conspicu¬ 
ous by their absence from the public records of Massa¬ 
chusetts during the colonial period. But the unchartered 
Separatists of New Plymouth dutifully continued to use 
regnal years till a comparatively late date, although like 
their more aggressive brethren in the Bay they banished 
the use of Saints’ Days from their vernacular and their 
calendar. 

It is noteworthy that the control and management of 
the public schools was never committed to the clergy as 
such. The towns appear to have taken the initiative in 
the establishment of schools. Thus, by a vote of the 
Town Meeting of Boston, on April 13, 1635, Philemon 
Pormort “was intreated to become schoolmaster, for the 
teaching and nourturing of children with us.” This vote 
marks the beginning of the Public Latin School whose 
principal object since its establishment has been fitting 
boys to enter college. In its early days it was usually 



BOSTON CITY HALL, SCHOOL STREET. 

Site of first Latin School in America. 










































































' 




























Boston’s Schools and School Committee. 81 

called the Free School. Its maintenance was met 
partly by fees, partly by the town rates and other income 
and partly from lands and funds set apart for its use by 
the Town. Writing and reading schools for instruction in 
elementary subjects were established later. 

Gradually the Town gave over to the Selectmen the 
engagement of schoolmasters and the inspection of schools. 
They in turn appointed committees of visitation, com¬ 
posed of justices, clergymen and other notables to aid 
them. Ultimately in 1789, when the town adopted a 
new “ System of Public Education,” what has since been 
known as the School Committee emerged. The committee 
then constituted consisted of twelve men in addition to 
the Selectmen. Practically the whole management and 
regulation of school affairs was intrusted to the School 
Committee, which has always been an elective body 
chosen by the people. School boards, now common 
throughout the English-speaking world, appear to have 
originated in Boston. 

The Boston system of 1789 provided for the main¬ 
tenance of: (1) a Latin Grammar School for boys; 
(2) three writing schools; and (3) three reading schools. 
The south, center and north parts of the town had 
each a writing and a reading school, in which instruction 
was provided for children of both sexes from seven to 
fourteen years of age. Boys to enter the Latin School 
had to be ten years old and might continue there for four 
years. 

Schools similar to the Boston Latin School were estab¬ 
lished in Dorchester and Roxbury in 1639. In 1645 the 
Town of Dorchester adopted an elaborate scheme for 
the oversight and ordering of their school by three 
Wardens to be chosen by the Town for life. How long 


82 


Boston and Its Story. 


'-'V 


the system obtained does not appear. Possibly, Dor¬ 
chester should be credited with the invention of an 
inchoate School Committee one hundred and forty years 
before that of Boston took definite shape. However, 
Boston annexed Dorchester in 1870. 

Perhaps the most significant characteristic of the 
beginnings of the free schools of Massachusetts, aside 
from their institution and endowment by the towns, was 
their democratic basis and their freedom from control by 
the clergy. 

In 1647 the General Court passed an Act requiring 
every township of fifty householders to provide instruc¬ 
tion in writing and reading for all children; and any 
town with one hundred families was required “to set 
up a grammar school” for the instruction of youth to 
“be fitted for the university.” 

Certain innovations, introduced quite casually, were 
continued without the sanction of a definite enactment. 
It may be argued that it was the policy of the leaders to 
let customs ripen gradually, partly because that was the 
way in England and partly from caution lest the 
publication of formal enactments, involving departure 
from existing law and custom, should evoke criticism, 
and provoke attack from ill-wishers. But to their chagrin, 
such a policy proved impracticable as regards the changes 
wrought in the framework of their government in response 
to the demands of the people for statutory limitations of 
the discretion of the Magistrates in the exercise of their 
executive and judicial functions. 

The United States and the several States of the Union 
all have written constitutions, in contradistinction to 
the so-called unwritten constitution of England. It is 
interestipg to note that the pronounced predilection 


Uprising of the Freemen, 1634. 83 

for a written constitution, now considered a distinctively 
American trait, manifested itself at an early stage 
in the constitutional development of the Bay Colony. 
Before the Colony was five years old, the term Com¬ 
monwealth had begun to supplant the term Company, 
witness the votes of the General Court in 1634. 

Several popular democratic devices, besides the secret 
ballot, that are highly lauded in our day, on account of 
their supposed modernity, were tested and found good 
by the Bay colonists, e. g., the referendum and primary 
elections. But formal institution of “the recall” was 
unnecessary, so long as annually recurring elections 
enabled the electors to “get at” their Magistrates, who 
were judges as well as legislators, it should be remembered. 

It is a curious fact that the present Constitution of 
Massachusetts, although it has been revised by two con¬ 
ventions, still provides that delegates to the Congress of 
the United States “may be recalled at any time within 
the year, and others chosen and commissioned in their 
stead.” Of course, this provision has been inoperative 
since the adoption of the Constitution of the United 
States in 1788. No instance of this form of recall in 
Massachusetts has come to our notice. 

In 1634 what may be called the Uprising of the Free¬ 
men occurred. In effect, it was a bloodless revolution 
that resulted in the introduction of a principle not set 
forth in the charter, but which, speaking broadly, has 
underlaid the government of Massachusetts ever since. 
That principle was embodied in the establishment of a 
body of Deputies to represent the Freemen of the towns 
“in all affairs of the Commonwealth, wherein the Freemen 
have to do, the matter of election, of Magistrates, and 
other officers only excepted.” 


Boston and Its Story. 


'-''V 


84 


In the period 1630-33, the Magistrates exceeded con¬ 
siderably the powers granted them by the charter. As is 
not infrequently the case with persons in power w r ho are 
deeply sensible of their own rectitude, the Magistrates 
seem to have thought themselves indispensable to the 
well ordering of the community; so much so that they 
had kept their numbers small and, to enhance their power 
to do good, had encroached at times upon the chartered 
rights of the Freemen. 

The Magistrates manifested oligarchical propensities at 
the very first General Court of the Company held in 
Massachusetts, viz., that of October 19, 1630. Although 
the term of office of the Magistrates expired on that day 
no election was held. Indeed no election of Assistants 
took place until May, 1632. This first Court at Boston 
was evidently "run” by the Magistrates, who forebore 
to admit any of more than one hundred applicants for 
the freemanship; and secured the assent of the people 
to the subversive proposal “that the Assistants from 
amongst themselves should choose a Governor and 
Deputy Governor, who with the Assistants should have 
the power of making laws and choosing officers to execute 
the same.” 

In 1631 the General Court “to the end (that) the body 
of the commons may be preserved of honest and good 
men” limited the freemanship to “members of some of 
the churches.” This limitation of the electorate occa¬ 
sioned some discontent later on, but remained practically 
unmodified for over fifty years. 

In 1632 the Court of Assistants levied a rate of £60 
upon the towns to defray the cost of building a palisade 
“about the newe towne.” This aroused popular appre¬ 
hension. At Watertown, “the pastor and elder assembled 


Introduction of Secret Ballot, 1634. 85 

the people and delivered their opinion, that it was not 
safe to pay moneys after that sort for fear of bringing 
themselves and posterity into bondage.” The Magis¬ 
trates succeeded in inducing the Watertown men to 
confess themselves in error, but the next General Court 
conceded the appointment of two men from every plan¬ 
tation “to conferre with the Court about raiseing of a 
publique stocke.” 

But this and some other concessions did not satisfy the 
people. Early in April, 1634, after the notices of the 
Court of Elections, to be held in May, had been sent out, 
each of the eight principal towns deputed three men to 
meet and consider matters to be brought before the Court. 
Having met in Boston, they “desired a sight of the patent, 
and, conceiving thereby that all their laws should be made 
at the general court, repaired to the governor to advise 
with him about it.” Winthrop endeavored to convince 
them that their demands were unreasonable, but they 
remained unconvinced. 

The General Court held in Boston, May 14, 1634, is 
memorable in the annals of Massachusetts. It was 
marked by several innovations, e. g., the presence of an 
unusual number of Freemen, the introduction, contrary 
to English usage, of papers, i. e., written ballots in the 
election of officers, as well as the institution of deputies 
to represent the towns. 

Moreover, at this Court, Mr. Cotton preached what 
was probably the first in a long series of “Election Ser¬ 
mons.” The annual sermon to the Legislature has long 
since been given up, but a reminder of the ancient custom 
lingers in the sermon delivered before its annual election 
to the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of 
Boston. Mr. Cotton admonished the Court that “a 


‘-'V 


86 Boston and Its Story. 

magistrate ought not to be turned into the condition of a 
private man without just cause . . . no more than the 
magistrates may not turn a private man out of his free¬ 
hold without like public trial.” But the Freemen were 
in no mood to entertain such doctrine, being bent on 
drastic action. 

Before proceeding to the election, they revoked the 
Oath of a Freeman which the Assistants had formulated 
six weeks before and established a new form. The former 
oath had practically exacted sworn obedience to the 
magistracy. The new oath required the Freemen “within 
the jurisdiction of this commonweale” to swear to be 
“true and faithful to the government,” and contained no 
mention of Governor or Assistants. They then passed 
resolutions embodying their interpretation of the powers 
of the General Court under the charter, and declared that 
none but the General Court had power to choose and 
admit Freemen, or to make and establish laws, or to elect 
and appoint officers or to raise moneys and taxes and to 
dispose of lands. 

At the election which followed, through the use of the 
secret ballot, they quietly left John Winthrop out of the 
governorship, which he had occupied since October 20, 
1629, and relegated him to the ranks of the Assistants, 
where he was kept for two years, till he was chosen Deputy 
Governor under Vane. In the interim he did good service 
as one of the allotters and men chosen for the town’s 
occasions in Boston. 

After 1634 the Deputies formed a co-ordinate part of the 
government of the Commonwealth and shared abundantly 
in the development of its institutions and control of its 
affairs. In 1644 the General Court was divided into 
two chambers, concurrent action of which was made 


Electoral and Apportionment Systems. 


87 


requisite for the enactment of orders. The first election 
of a Speaker of the House of Deputies took place in May, 
1644. 

Although the charter provided that 18 Assistants should 
be elected annually, after the removal of the government 
to Massachusetts, their number fluctuated between 7 and 
12 down to 1679, when the crown gave positive orders 
that the full number of Assistants should be chosen annu¬ 
ally. Accordingly, in 1680, and thenceforward, 18 Assist¬ 
ants were chosen from the candidates nominated at the 
primary elections. Possibly the small number of Assistants 
prior to 1679 was owing to the disinclination of the Depu¬ 
ties to an increase in the number of Magistrates. 

The Freemen found the secret ballot a serviceable 
device. At the Court of Elections, 1634, Winthrop was 
left out of the governorship; Dudley, his successor, was 
similarly left out in 1635, as was Haynes in 1636, and 
Henry Vane in 1637. In 1635 Roger Ludlow, who had 
been Deputy Governor the year before, was left out of 
that office and of the Assistants as well. Ludlow and 
Haynes went to Connecticut where they became pillars 
in the State; and Vane returned, in a pet, to England. 
Endicott was also left out of the Assistants in 1635, 
and Coddington and Dummer, of the Vane faction, were 
similarly left out in 1637. 

Another innovation of the Colonial electoral system was 
“ proxy-voting.’’ It was tried first in 1636, and estab¬ 
lished in 1637. Under this system, the Freemen’s votes in 
the towns for every Magistrate were sealed up and sent 
to Boston to be canvassed at the Court of Elections. As 
late as 1680, and probably even after the charter was 
revoked in 1684, the Freeman might give his vote for 
Magistrates in person or proxy at the Court of Elections. 




88 Boston and Its Story. 

So that Court never wholly lost its character as an 
annual primary assembly. It was the actual votes, not 
returns of the number of votes cast by the Freemen, that 
the Deputies carried to Boston. 

After 1636, Deputies were chosen by ballot, and in 1643 
it was ordered ‘‘That, for the yearly choosing of Assist¬ 
ants, the freemen shall use Indian Corn and Beans, the 
Indian Corn to manifest Election, the Beans contrary.” 
In 1647 the use of “papers open, or once folded, not 
twisted or rolled up,” was ordained by the General Court. 

The apportionment of Deputies under the system estab¬ 
lished by the General Court in 1634 was based on the 
number of Freemen in a town, the town being made the 
electoral district. One Deputy was allowed for 20 Free¬ 
men; two for 20-40; three for above 40, by an order of 
1636. But three years later, the number of Deputies for 
a town was reduced to two. In 1681 Boston, as the result 
of persistent claims, was given permission to send three 
Deputies to the General Court, and from 1692, under the 
Provincial Charter, Boston was privileged to elect four 
Deputies. 

The fifteen years following the Uprising of the Freemen 
was a period of controversy between the parties of pre¬ 
rogative and popular rights, represented respectively by 
the Magistrates and the Deputies. The exigencies of the 
struggle led to an unusual number of novel proposals, 
and to several new devices and experiments. The Magis¬ 
trates were pertinacious and ingenious in their attempts 
to limit the number of Deputies, and to modify the system 
of elections. But the General Court manifested a height¬ 
ened solicitude to know the mind of the Freemen on 
matters of counsel and the making of laws, especially 
when changes affecting the fundamental laws and the 


Introduction of Primary Elections, 1640. 89 

apportionment of Deputies were under discussion. It is 
noteworthy that the following schemes proposed for 
limiting the number of Deputies were referred to the towns, 
viz., that for every 10 Freemen in a town, one should 
vote for the rest at the Court of Elections; that Deputies 
should be elected by counties instead of towns; that the 
number of Deputies from a town should be reduced from 
two to one. In all these cases, the referendum resulted 
in the defeat of the proposal to lessen the number of 
Deputies. So Massachusetts may be characterized as the 
“Mother of the Referendum.” The practice of resorting 
to a referendum, on doubtful questions, which grew up 
in the period 1639-47, became the natural procedure in 
times of doubt and turmoil, e. g., 1684, 1689, 1766 and 
the period 1776-80. That the referendum has played 
an important and influential part in the development 
of the Constitution of Massachusetts can hardly be 
gainsaid. 

A novel system of primary elections, for the Nomination 
of Magistrates, was developed by a series of tentative 
measures in the period 1639-49. It continued with slight 
interruption, e. g., during the incumbency of Andros, 
and but few alterations till the Province charter took 
effect in 1692. The first action taken towards the nomi¬ 
nation of Magistrates seems to be that mentioned by 
Winthrop in his account of the election of 1639. “At 
this court,” he says, “there being want of assistants, the 
governor and other Magistrates thought fit (in the warrant 
for the court) to propound three amongst which Mr. 
Downing, the governor’s brother-in-law was one . . . 

Yet the people would not choose him.” For that matter, 
the people would not choose either of the other two 


nominees. 




90 Boston and Its Story. 

It seems probable that the nomination of new Assist¬ 
ants by the Magistrates in 1639 provoked the next 
General Court to provide for the Nomination of Magis¬ 
trates by the Freemen in the towns. After some experi¬ 
ments, e. g. y the holding of a nominating convention at 
Salem, in 1643, the system was evolved, by 1649, whereby 
the Freemen of every town were ordered to be called 
together annually some day in the last week of November, 
“to give in their votes in distinct papers for such persons 
as they desired to have chosen Assistants at the next 
Court of Elections, not exceeding twenty in number.’’ The 
sealed-up votes of the Freemen were then to be carried 
to the shire towns on the last Wednesday of March follow¬ 
ing. Each shire meeting was charged to choose “one 
Commissioner” to carry the votes, on the second Tuesday 
of April, to Boston “there to be opened in the presence 
of two magistrates if they be in town.” “The twenty 
with the most votes shall be the men, and they only, 
which shall be nominated at the Court of Elections.” 
This was the system that obtained with but slight changes 
till the end of the Colonial Period. 

To the establishment of the Colonial system of direct 
nominations, the following results may be fairly attrib¬ 
uted: first, the general system of choosing Magistrates 
at large was so supplemented by the holding of primary 
elections as to make the final choice by the Freemen at 
the election itself more deliberate and intelligent; second, 
the primary elections resulted in the nomination of a 
relatively large number of candidates who had attained 
prominence as members of the House of Deputies, and so 
commended themselves as candidates for the magistracy. 
Thereby the Freemen kept on hand a sort of preferred 
list of Deputies and Ex-deputies from which they were 


Beginnings of the Caucus, 1635. 91 

accustomed to fill vacancies caused by death, disfavor, or 
removal from the Colony. Thus, of 55 new men elected 
to the magistracy in the period 1634-92, inclusive, 82 
per cent had been members of the House of Deputies. 
So it came about that the electoral system of the Bay 
Colony was remarkably complete and adequate. It grew 
rapidly under the stress of local needs and party feeling 
into an effective instrument for expressing the desires of 
the electorate. The Freeman, provided he was a church 
member, had a vote: (1) in the choice of elders and teachers 
in his church, and in the conduct of its affairs; (2) in the 
choice of Selectmen and other town officers, and on all 
prudential affairs of the town, and in the choice of Deputies 
to represent the town in the General Court; (3) in the 
nomination and election at large of the Magistrates, and 
therefore of the justices who presided over the judicial 
courts. Only slight traces of primary elections to determine 
candidates for town offices or Deputies can be found, but 
rudimentary forms of the caucus may be discerned in 
certain pre-election agreements mentioned by Gov. 
Winthrop as arousing criticism before the development 
of primary elections had begun, e. g., in 1635, when Lud¬ 
low was left out, and again in 1639, when some of the elders 
strove to prevent the election of Winthrop as Governor. 
But it is to be noted that the primitive caucus was for 
general and not local candidates. 

In 1635, when Haynes was elected Governor, Ludlow, 
the former Deputy Governor, was altogether left out of the 
magistracy, partly, according to Winthrop, because he 
“protested against the Election of the governor as void, 
for that the deputies of the several towns had agreed upon 
the election before they came.” This, until an earlier 
instance is brought to light, may be taken as the first 




92 Boston and Its Story. 

legislative caucus in Massachusetts. Perhaps the elders 
held a caucus in 1639, when they vainly strove to prevent 
Winthrop’s election as Governor. Two years later, 
Bellingham’s election was “ labored for.” We know of no 
instances of primary elections to choose candidates for 
Deputies in the towns. 

Boston has usually been credited with the origination of 
the caucus. The term is supposed to be a corruption of 
“Caulkers” who were wont to manifest much pre-election 
activity in Boston. It is fairly certain that the caucus 
was domesticated in Boston early in the eighteenth cen¬ 
tury, when the father of Sam Adams was active in the 
“Caulkers’ Club”; and that just before the Revolution 
there were at least three well-organized “caucus clubs” in 
the town. 

Boston did, in 1669, institute local primary elections for 
the benefit of its two outlying districts, viz., Muddy River 
(Brookline) and Rumney Marsh (Chelsea), as appears 
from the following order relative to their inhabitants, 
passed by the Boston Town Meeting on March 10, 1673: 

“Ordered, That they have liberty before the day of 
Election annually for the time to come to meet together 
and make choice of officers fit for their several precincts 
and return their names to the public town meeting for 
election, according to an order 15th March, 1669.” 

The Freemen in 1635 exemplified the Puritan venera¬ 
tion for the written word by a demand for written laws: 

“The deputies,” Winthrop tells us, “having conceived 
great danger to our state in regard that our Magistrates, 
for want of positive laws, in many cases, might proceed 
according to their discretions, it was agreed that some men 


Introduction of the Referendum, 1639. 93 

should be appointed to frame a body of grounds of laws, 
in resemblance to a Magna Charta, which being allowed 
by some of the ministers and the General Court should be 
received for fundamental laws.” 

The movement thus initiated resulted in the adoption 
and enactment in 1641 of the “Bodye of Liberties.” 
During the interval 1635-41, several committees were 
appointed by the General Court to expedite the matter, 
but it is evident that the Magistrates and the elders fol¬ 
lowed a policy of delay and avoidance. Finally, two 
models of heads of fundamental laws were drawn up. One 
was prepared by Rev. John Cotton of Boston, which was 
characterized as “a copy of Moses His Judicials,” the 
other was by Rev. Nathaniel Ward of Ipswich, who had 
been trained as a lawyer. In 1639 the General Court 
ordered that “the models concerning a form of government 
and laws to be established” should be drawn up into “one 
body” by a committee charged “to take order that the 
same shall be copied out and sent to the several towns 
that the Elders of the churches and the freemen may 
consider of them against the next General Court.” This 
reference of the two models appears to have been the first 
recourse of the General Court to a constitutional referen¬ 
dum. Ward’s model, not Cotton’s, was acepted. Finally 
it was voted by the General Court on December 10, 1641, 
“That the body of laws formerly sent forth among the 
Freemen should stand in force,” etc. The Bodye of 
Liberties was not chiefly a code of statutes; it was in some 
respects a prophetic type of the Bill of Rights and Frame 
of Government adopted as the Constitution of the State 
of Massachusetts in 1780. The Bodye of Liberties was 
one of the results of the Uprising of the Freemen in 1634. 




94 Boston and Its Story. 

It was, in effect, a supplement to the charter of 1629, as 
may be inferred from the second paragraph of its preamble, 
which reads as follows: 

“We hould it therefore our dutie and safetie whilst we 
are about the further establishing of this Government to 
collect and express all such freedomes as for the present 
we forsee may concerne us, and our posteritie after us. 
And to ratifie them, with our sollemne consent.” 

Among the liberties guaranteed by the Bodye of Liber¬ 
ties to the Freemen was “full power to choose annually 
. . . out of themselves a convenient number of fit men 
to order the planting or prudentiall occasions of that Town, 
according to Instructions given them in writing.” The 
records of Boston abound with references to instructions 
both to the Selectmen and Deputies. Thus, on March 20, 
1679, the Freemen chose a committee to “draw up 
instructions for the Deputies of the General Court on 
behalf of the town.” August 29 following, the two 
deputies of the General Court “made a return of 
what was committed to them by their instructions to 
promote at the said Court for the town.” The Freemen 
voted that the Deputies should at the next session “again 
• move and press the 5th Article in their instructions con¬ 
cerning the augmentation of Deputies of this town.” It 
is noteworthy that the Freemen in the last of the 16 
Articles of their instructions desired the Deputies “to 
make a return of what shall be done in the premises at 
the end of each session.” The Freemen were particularly 
insistent in their desire to “have deputies in the General 
Court proportionable to our number of freemen.” They 
alleged, inasmuch as every town that had twenty Freemen 
might send two Deputies, and no town more than two, 


Instructions to Boston Representatives, 1764. 95 

that “all the Freemen in each town more than twenty 
have no vote in the General Court. . . . And shall 
twenty Freemen have equal privileges with our great 
Town that consists of near twenty times twenty Freemen, 
and bears their full proportion of all public charges.” 

The General Court on March 16, 1680, passed an order 
allowing Boston to choose three Deputies. So it appears 
that the Freemen of Boston secured recognition of the 
principle, at least with regard to Boston, that represen¬ 
tation should be based upon numbers. This was of far- 
reaching effect, for the same principle was recognized by 
the Provincial Charter. Boston, because of its greater 
numbers, was allowed to send four representatives to the 
General Court. This was in marked contrast to the 
basis of apportionment which obtained then and even 
throughout most of the nineteenth century in Rhode 
Island and Connecticut. There^ whatever the size of 
the towns, the number of representatives in the General 
Court was the same for each town. So Boston should 
be credited with having rendered the Massachusetts sys¬ 
tem of representation more democratic than that of the 
colonies of Rhode Island and Connecticut, that are 
usually cited as examples of a more liberal democracy 
than obtained in the Mother Colony of Massachusetts. 

It appears to have been a well established custom, at 
least in Boston, of the Freemen in the latter part of the 
Colonial period, and of their successors, the Freeholders 
and Other Inhabitants, throughout the Provincial period, 
to give written instructions to their Deputies and Repre¬ 
sentatives. They were enabled thereby to exercise 
influence upon legislation through what we may call a 
primitive form of initiative. 

In 1728 the Boston Town Meeting voted unanimously 


96 


Boston and Its Story 


to instruct their Representatives “not to fix a salary for 
the Governor.” In retaliation for such disrespect toward 
the king, Burnet caused the sessions of the General 
Court to be held at Salem and Cambridge instead of 
Boston for a time. In 1729, after Burnet’s death, they 
were resumed in Boston. 

The period 1764-80, i. e., from the initiation of Gren¬ 
ville’s measures for taxing the colonies until the adoption 
of the Constitution of Massachusetts, affords numer¬ 
ous instances in which Massachusetts towns exemplified 
the principles of the initiative. In this period instruc¬ 
tions by the towns, particularly the Town of Boston, 
played a large part in the controversy with the Royal 
Governors, the king and Parliament, and in the devel¬ 
opment of the American doctrine of popular rights. 
Indeed a fair sized treatise on the Nature of Government 
and the Rights of the Subject might be compiled from the 
instructions to their representatives by the Town of 
Boston. 

The instructions to the Boston Representatives, in 1764, 
as in several later years, were the handiwork of Samuel 
Adams — the ablest and most farseeing American poli¬ 
tician of his day. These instructions of 1764 are remark¬ 
able in both their tone and content — they strike the 
keynote of the prolonged debate between Massachusetts 
and the British Government. In the exercise of their 
“Constitutional Right of expressing their mind and 
giving such Instruction ... as they shall Judge 
proper,” the constituents of the Boston Representatives 
urged them to use their “utmost endeavors to promote 
Public frugality as one means to lessen the Publick Debt” 
incurred on account of the late war. There is apprehen¬ 
sion of “new taxations” by Parliament. 



SAMUEL ADAMS, THE GREAT PATRIOT. 














































































Instructions to Boston Representatives, 1766. 97 

“If taxes are laid upon us in any shape without ever 
having a Legal Representative where they are laid are we 
not reduced from the Character of Free Subjects to 
the Miserable State of tributary Slaves. We therefore 
earnestly recommend it to you to use your utmost 
endeavors, to obtain in the General Assembly all necessary 
Instructions and advice to our Agent, . . . that he 
may be able to remonstrate for us all those Rights and 
Privileges which Justly belong to us either by Charter or 
Birth. As his Maj esty’s other Northern American Colonys 
are embark’d with us in this most important Bottom, we 
further desire you to use your Endeavors that their 
weight may be added To that of this Province; that by 
the united Applications of all who are Aggrieved, All 
may happily obtain Redress.” 

On September 18, 1765, Instructions for the Represen¬ 
tatives of the Town after expressing “the greatest Dis¬ 
satisfaction” with the Stamp Act add: “And we think 
it incumbent upon you by no Means to Join in any 
publick Measures for Countenancing and assisting in the 
Execution of the same: But to use your best endeavors 
in the General Assembly, to have the Inherent unalienable 
Rights of the People of this Province asserted and vindi¬ 
cated.” The instructions were passed unanimously. 

In 1766 Bostonians were greatly rejoiced over the 
repeal of the Stamp Act, and the Town Meeting voted 
that “every Inhabitant be desired to Illuminate his 
Dwelling House,” and appointed a committee to report 
“what they think may be further necessary for the Town 
to do, in order to testify their Gratitude,” etc. The 
Representatives were instructed “to bring forward and 
promote such an order as shall make the debates in the 
House of Representatives as public as those in the House 
of Commons in Great Britain, that you may be very 
watchful over our Just rights, liberties and privileges. 


98 


Boston and Its Story. 


And give us notice whenever you apprehend them in 
danger; and for the total abolishing of Slavery from 
among us; that you move for a law to prohibit the impor¬ 
tation and purchasing of slaves for the future. In the 
next place with respect to North America in general it 
is our advice and instruction, that you keep up a con¬ 
stant and friendly intercourse with the other English 
Governments on the Continent.” 

One may find in this last injunction a forecast of the 
Circular letter of 1768 and the statements issued by Com¬ 
mittees of Correspondence in 1772 and later. 

In 1772 Governor Hutchinson’s refusal to comply 
with a petition of Boston to allow the General Assembly 
to meet impelled the Town on November 2 to vote 
unanimously, on the motion of Mr. Samuel Adams: 

“That a Committee of Correspondence be appointed to 
state the Rights of the Colonists and of this Province in 
Particular as Men, as Christians, and as Subjects; to 
communicate and publish the same to the several Towns 
in this Province and to the World as the sense of this 
Town, with the Infringements and Violations thereof that 
have been made. Also requesting of each Town a free 
communication of their Sentiments on this Subject.” 

The committee’s report, a lengthy one, was duly con¬ 
sidered by the Town, and unanimously adopted, on 
November 20, 1772, and was published in pamphlet form. 
In its Statement of Rights and List of Infringements and 
Violations of those rights, this declaration both in its 
subject matter and phraseology reads much like a forecast 
of the Declaration of Independence of 1776. So much so 
that a correspondent of John Adams assured him that 
the Declaration of Independence contained nothing new. 


Statement of Rights, by Boston, 1772. 99 

The Statement of Rights by Sam Adams begins as 
follows: 

“Among the natural Rights of the Colonists are these, 
first, a Right to Life; secondly, to Liberty; thirdly, to 
Property; together with the Right to support and defend 
them in the best manner they can. Those are evident 
branches of, rather than deductions from the Duty of 
Self Preservation, commonly called the first Law of 
Nature. . . . When Men enter Society it is by voluntary 
consent; and they have a right to demand and insist 
upon the performance of such conditions and limitations 
as form an equitable original compact .” 

The List of Infringements numbers twelve in all. One 
will suffice here. “1st. The British Parliament have 
assumed the power of legislating for the Colonists in all 
cases whatsoever, without obtaining the consent of the 
Inhabitants, which is ever essentially necessary to the 
right establishment of such a legislative.” 

While suffering from the effects of the Boston Port 
Bill, the people of Boston were greatly stirred by the 
news that Parliament had passed still other “intolerable 
Acts.” At a Town Meeting, held on July 26, 1774, Boston 
“accepted Paragraph by Paragraph” a Letter to the 
other Towns relative to “Two Acts of Parliament, altering 
the Course of Justice and annihilating our free Constitu¬ 
tion of Government.” The second of the acts alluded to 
provided that no Town meeting, except for an election, 
should be held in the Province, without the written per¬ 
mission of the Royal Governor,— who was also given 
power to prescribe what matters should be considered in 
such meetings. 

On September 1, 1774, General Gage, the last Royal 


100 


Boston and Its Story. 


Governor, issued writs for an election of Representatives 
to the General Court to be convened on October 5 at 
Salem. On September 25, an election was held for four 
Representatives from Boston. At the same meeting three 
persons were appointed and impowered by the Town,—- 
“in addition to our four Representatives to join with the 
Members who may be sent from the Neighboring Towns 
in the Province, at a Time to be agreed on, in a General 
Provincial Congress.” 

The Representatives from Boston were instructed 

“To adhere firmly to the Charter . . . and to do no 
Act which can possibly be construed into an Acknowledg¬ 
ment of the Act of the British Parliament, for altering the 
Government of Massachusetts Bay. . . And as we have 
Reason to believe that a Conscientious Discharge of your 
Duty will produce your Dissolution, as an House of 
Representatives, We do hereby impower and instruct you 
to join with the Members, who may be sent from this and 
the Neighboring Towns in the Province, and to meet with 
them on a time to be agreed on, in a General Provincial 
Congress, to act upon such Matters as may come before 
you, in such a manner, as shall appear to you most con¬ 
ducive to the true Interest of this Town and Province, 
and most likely to preserve the Liberties of all America.” 

De Tocqueville may well have had the Town of Boston 
in mind when he wrote: 

“The American Revolution broke out, and the doctrine 
of the sovereignty of the people came out of the town¬ 
ships and took possession of the State. Every class was 
enlisted in its cause; battles were fought and victories 
obtained for it; it became the law of laws.” 

As soon as the meaning of the Regulating Act of 1774 
became clear, which forbade the holding of Town meetings 
without the written permission of the Governor, the 



PRINTING OFFICE OF JAMES FRANKLIN, WHERE BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

LEARNED THE PRINTING TRADE. 

In the upper story was located the Longroom Club, over which Samuel Adams 
presided, and where the meetings of the Patriots were held which led to the Revolu¬ 
tion and Independence of the Nation. Corner Court Street and Franklin Avenue. 


























































Boston Wishes Constitutional Convention, 1777. 101 

question of establishing a new form of government began 
to be agitated. Thus, one of Sam Adams’s correspondents, 
in a letter dated July 29, 1774, declared “It would be best 
to form a New Charter for ourselves,” and on September 
12, Dr. Joseph Warren wrote to Adams, “Many among 
us and almost all in the Western Countys are for taking 
up the old Form of Government according to the first 
Charter. ” 

At a Town Meeting in Boston, held on May 23, 1776, 
to consider a referendum issued by the House of Repre¬ 
sentatives, it was voted unanimously: 

“That if the Honble. Continental Congress should for 
the safety of the Colonies, declare them Independent of 
the Kingdom of Great Britain, they the Inhabitants, will 
solemnly engage with their Lives and Fortunes to support 
them in the Measure.” 

By this vote Boston instructed its Representatives to 
vote to authorize the Massachusetts Delegates in Con¬ 
gress to vote for Independence. 

Early in May, 1777, the House of Representatives 
recommended the towns to instruct their Representatives 
to act with the Council in forming a Constitution of 
Government. On May 26 the Town adopted instructions 
in which their Representatives were “directed by a 
unanimous vote in a full meeting, on no Terms to consent” 
to the General Court’s forming a new Constitution. 
The instructions intimate that “This matter at a suitable 
time will properly come before the people at large to 
delegate a Select Number for that purpose, and that alone.” 

The Assembly and the Council resolved on June 17 to 
act as a Convention, and their plan of a Form of Govern¬ 
ment was finally ordered printed on December 11, and 


102 


Boston and Its Story. 


in May following, the Constitution of 1778, so called, 
was submitted to the voters of the State. The Boston 
Town Meeting voted unanimously on May 25 (968 votes 
being cast) against ratification of the Constitution, chiefly 
because it had not been framed by a convention chosen 
especially for the purpose by the people, and furthermore, 
because it was not prefaced by a bill of rights. 

The instructions by the Town of Boston, adopted May 
26, 1777, embodied what was, perhaps, the first intimation 
of a desire for a special convention elected by the people 
to frame a constitution to be submittted to the people for 
their acceptance or rejection. Be that as it may, it is 
indisputable that the people of Massachusetts in the spring 
of 1779, in response to a referendum emanating from the 
House of Representatives, emphatically declared their 
desire for: (1) “a New Constitution”; and (2) “the call¬ 
ing of a State Convention for the sole purpose of forming 
a new Constitution.” 

Accordingly the Constitutional Convention of 1779, 
the first of its kind anywhere, was called. In it Boston 
was represented by twelve delegates. James Bowdoin of V <1 
Boston was President of the Convention. Although the 
Convention met first at Cambridge on September 1, 1779, 
most of its sessions were held at the Old State House in 
Boston, where the first General Court of the State of 
Massachusetts was organized on October 25, 1780. 

In accordance with a Resolve passed March 2, 1780, 
the Constitution was submitted to the people. It was 
duly ratified; but no official statement either in print or 
manuscript can be found as to the whole number of votes 
for and against ratification. It seems probable from the 
incomplete manuscript returns extant, that at least 
13,000 votes, 12,000 yeas and 1,000 nays, were cast on 


Adoption of Constitution, 1780. 103 

the acceptance of Article I., Part I. of the Bill of Rights. 
Like the Convention that framed it the Constitution of 
1780 was the first of its kind in America, in that it was 
adopted by vote of the people. All of the earlier State 
Constitutions were framed and adopted by legislative 
assemblies without an express mandate from the people. 

The Boston Town Meeting having considered the pro¬ 
posed Constitution, paragraph by paragraph, on May 3 
and May 4, 1780, on May 8 voted to accept the Constitu¬ 
tion as a whole (“except the 3d Article of the Bill of 
Rights and the 2d Article of the 1st Chapter relative to 
the mode of Electing Senators”) by a vote of 886 yeas 
to 1 nay. Two days were then devoted to the Third 
Article of the Bill of Rights, which being amended was 
finally accepted by a vote of 420 yeas to 140 nays. The 
article in question authorized and empowered the Legis¬ 
lature: (1) to require the Towns to maintain at their 
own expense public worship and public Protestant 
teachers of piety, religion and morality; and (2) to enjoin 
attendance of all subjects upon the instructions of such 
teachers. 

In 1833 this Article was rescinded, in accordance with 
a constitutional referendum — although a similar refer¬ 
endum in 1821 had resulted in a majority against rescission 
of the Article. It is worthy of note that Boston in 1833 
as in 1821 and 1780 voted strongly against Article III. 
of the Bill of Rights. 

On September 4, 1780, the first State election under 
the new Constitution was held. There were 12,281 votes 
cast for Governor, 600 in Maine, 11,681 in Massachusetts. 
Maine remained a part of Massachusetts till 1820. John 
Hancock, like Sam Adams, a product of the Boston Town 
Meeting, was elected Governor, receiving 11,207 votes, or 


104 


Boston and Its Story. 


91.25 per cent of the total vote for Governor. James 
Bowdoin, his principal competitor, received 1,033 votes. 
When we remember that at the election of 1780 the 
people of Massachusetts were free for the first time since 
1692 to elect their Governor, the total vote for Governor 
seems a light one; particularly as has been mentioned 
already the vote on the acceptance of the Constitution 
of 1780 appears to have exceeded 13,000. Another 
notable feature of the vote for Governor in 1780 was the 
failure of 71 towns, i. e., 24 per cent of 297 towns, to make 
return of any vote for Governor. Some 76 towns, of 
which 42 were in Massachusetts, appear not to have 
made return of any vote regarding the Constitution of 
1780. 

The Sons of the Revolution may well note that the 
voting habits of their fathers were rather peculiar. 

The people of Massachusetts, having secured a con¬ 
stitution to their liking, were content to leave it unchanged 
for forty years. Since 1820, one article in the Bill of 
Rights and 31 articles in the Frame of Government 
have been altered through the ratification of 44 amend¬ 
ments of the Constitution. In altering the Consti¬ 
tution, the people have acted with much deliberation 
and have shown their dislike of wholesale or headlong 
changes. 

Only two' conventions to revise the Constitution have 
been held. The first, held in 1821, proposed fourteen 
distinct amendments, of which only nine were ratified, 
although several of the rejected amendments were 
adopted in later years. The second Constitutional 
Convention, that of 1853, submitted eight “propositions” 
to be answered by “Yes” or “No.” That numbered 
“One” was a blanket referendum, covering what was in 
effect a revised constitution, embodying many radical 



JOHN HANCOCK'S HOUSE, BEACON STREET, NEAR PARK STREET. 






























Constitution of 1780 . 


105 


changes; the other seven were categorical propositions. 
However, all eight were rejected. On the pending 
question of holding a third Constitutional Convention, 
the public has shown but slight interest as yet. 

As a whole, the Constitution has undergone no very 
radical or essential change either in its essence or struc¬ 
ture in one hundred and thirty-six years, although it 
has been considerably democratized in certain features. 
For instance, religious and property tests have been 
abolished, manhood suffrage established, and the sphere 
of the electorate much enlarged. Moreover, support 
of Protestant ministers by the towns and required 
attendance upon the instructions of the clergy has not 
obtained for eighty-three years. 

Originally, the apportionment of Senators was based 
upon the proportionate amount of taxes paid in the sena¬ 
torial districts and apportionment of Representatives 
was based upon ratable polls. A more democratic basis 
was introduced in 1840. Since 1857, the basis of appor¬ 
tionment of both Senators and Representatives has 
been the number of legal voters found by a decennial 
census of the state. Originally, a candidate was debarred 
from certain offices unless he had a certain amount of 
property, and property tests hedged in the right to vote 
for State officers. But that has all been changed by 
constitutional amendments, ratified by the people. In 
1891 the payment of a poll tax ceased to be a prerequisite 
to registration as a voter. Down to 1855, a majority of 
votes cast was required in the election of civil officers. 
Since then, a plurality has sufficed. Again, in 1855, the 
election of Councilors, Secretary, Treasurer, Auditor and 
Attorney-General was taken from the Legislature and 
given over to the people. 

Of 70 questions referred to the voters of Massachusetts 


106 


Boston and Its Story. 


in the interval 1780-1915, inclusive, 62 related to changes 
in the Constitution. Forty-four proposed amendments 
were ratified and 18 were rejected. In 18 instances, 
Boston’s vote on a referendum was opposed to the major 
vote of the state outside of Boston. In 10 cases the 
vote of Boston turned the scale. Thus, in 1821, Boston’s 
majority of 994 for empowering the Legislature to grant 
city charters, countervailed a majority of 932 in the rest 
of the state against so doing. Again, in the same year, 
it was proposed to require no other oath than that of 
allegiance from any civil or military officer. The amend¬ 
ment was ratified because Boston gave it an affirmative 
majority of 2,245 against an adverse majority of 943 
outside of Boston. In 1853, when eight questions were 
referred to the voters by the Constitutional Convention, 
Boston voted contrary to the rest of the state on seven 
of them, and thereby prevented their ratification. On 
the eighth question, which was likewise negatived, Boston 
and the state outside of Boston, both cast a majority in 
the negative. The majority in Boston against radical 
changes in the Bill of Rights and the Frame of Govern¬ 
ment was 5,785, against an affirmative majority elsewhere 
of 857, while on forbidding the support of sectarian 
schools from public moneys, Boston gave an adverse 
majority of 4,672 against a majority favoring the pro¬ 
posal of 4,271 in the rest of the state. 

It is noteworthy that the eight referenda in 1853 evoked 
unusual popular interest, so much so that the total votes 
on the questions submitted ranged from 100.8 to 101.8 
per cent of the total vote for Governor. 

Massachusetts men were not so prominent and influ¬ 
ential in transforming the Confederated Colonies into the 
United States of America, i. e., 1787-88, as they had been 


Constitutional Convention, 1788. 107 

in the Continental Congress, 1774-76. Yet the Town 
of Boston, voicing the mercantile interests of the place, 
showed their concern over the weakness of the central 
government of the Confederacy in 1785, when British 
goods were being dumped upon the Boston market 
and the Congress was powerless to retaliate upon the 
contemptuous and selfish policy of Great Britain. The 
Town Meeting instructed its Representatives in the 
General Court to exert their utmost influence with that 
body to request the Governor “to open a correspondence 
with the Supreme Executive of the Other States to concert 
the means of National Unanimity and Exertion.” The 
primary purpose of the Annapolis Convention of 1786 was 
to “decide upon a uniform system of regulations for 
commerce.” Only 5 states were represented, so it 
adjourned, having issued a call for a convention to meet at 
Philadelphia in May, 1787; then, in the course of 4 months, 
the proposed Constitution of the United States was 
framed. On submission to the people of the several 
states, Massachusetts, by its Convention, was the sixth 
of the 9 necessary states to ratify the instrument, by 
a narrow majority of 19 in a total vote of 345 on 
February 6, 1788. • 

The major part of the Massachusetts Convention that 
ratified the United States Constitution in 1788 was 
unfavorably disposed to the instrument when it met. 
So were Sam Adams and John Hancock, who were mem¬ 
bers of the Convention. Elbridge Gerry, a delegate 
from Massachusetts, had refused to sign it when the 
Continental Congress adopted it for submission to the 
13 states. 

By adroit management, the Federalist leaders secured 
the support of Adams and Hancock. Theophilus Parsons, 


108 


Boston and Its Story. 


of Boston, seems to have been the master mind in winning 
their support by argument and finesse. Indeed it is 
fairly certain that Parsons wrote the speech in which 
Hancock theatrically announced his adhesion; and that 
certain amendments proposed by the Massachusetts 
Convention, and subsequently adopted by the other states 
of the Union, were drafted by Parsons, so as to allay Sam 
Adams’s objections to the instrument, as originally 
submitted. Adams was also influenced by the demon¬ 
stration (organized by Paul Revere) of the Boston 
mechanics at the Green Dragon Tavern in favor of the 
Constitution. 

Opposition to the adoption of the Constitution was most 
vigorous and menacing in Massachusetts and Virginia. 
The favorable action of the Massachusetts Convention 
in February doubtless contributed to like action by the 
Virginia Convention in June, 1788. Of the 10 amend¬ 
ments proposed at the first session of the first Congress 
of the United States, September, 1789 (and duly ratified 
by December 15, 1791), three of the most important were 
originally drafted by Theophilus Parsons of Boston, in 
deference to the views of Adams and Hancock, the most 
notable and influential spokesmen of the Town Meeting 
of Boston in their day and generation. 

Boston got busy before it got big. Being the principal 
port of New England, it has always been a bustling place 
of trade in its day and generation. Infant Boston began 
as a frontier town, with its face towards the Atlantic 
and its back towards an unexplored continent. Boston, 
even during its formative, agrarian stage, before the 
colonists began to seek alluvial plains to the westward, 
was an active maritime town and the seat of a growing 
overseas and coastwise commerce. 


Boston as a Port. 


109 


Throughout its history, Boston has been the entrepot 
of New England. While the Puritan exodus from Eng¬ 
land lasted, and it did not cease till 1640, Boston’s com¬ 
merce was mostly with the mother country, whence 
came immigrants, cattle and supplies in large numbers 
and quantities. In 1634, when the Bay Colony had per¬ 
haps 4,000 English inhabitants in some twenty villages 
on or near the coast, Winthrop notes the arrival in June 
of “fourteen great ships at Boston and one at Salem.” 
The importation of settlers reached its flood in 1638 
or thereabouts, when Winthrop says “there came over 
this Summer twenty ships and at least three thousand 
persons.” 

It has been estimated that in the period 1630-40. the 
arrivals in the colony in 298 ships numbered 21,200 pas¬ 
sengers, in about 4,000 families; and the cost to the immi¬ 
grants for transportation, cattle, supplies, etc., has been 
set at £192,000. So large an influx of home seekers 
stimulated both trade and agriculture. 

Many of the leaders of the migration belonged to the 
landed gentry, but, in the process of becoming pioneer 
immigrants, it would appear that their views and prac¬ 
tices underwent somewhat of a sea-change. They came 
away protesting their loyalty to the Anglican Church, 
but very shortly became Separatists, to all intents and 
purposes, and embraced the views, as regards church 
government, exemplified by their neighbors at New 
Plymouth. No aristocratic scruples prevented them 
from engaging in trade and industry when occasion served. 
Although they were ardent seekers after the Bread of 
Life, they were not neglectful of means to secure their 
daily bread — in good measure. 

Of the Magistrates who came out in 1630, several 


110 


Boston and Its Story. 


i 

became active men of affairs. Thus, Governor Winthrop 
built the first Massachusetts sea-going vessel, “The 
Blessing of the Bay.” It was launched July 4, 1631, 
on the Mystic River, where he had a farm called “Ten 
Hills.” This craft, a bark of perhaps 60 tons, was used 
in coastwise and West India trade. Coddington, Pyn- 
chon, Endicott and Sir Richard Saltonstall became active 
traders and promoters of industrial progress. Governor 
Winthrop’s sons, particularly John Winthrop, Jr., who 
was an Assistant 1632-49, and later Governor of 
Connecticut, were active in commercial ventures and 
attempts to establish iron and salt works. 

The first ship built in Boston was the “Trial,” of 
about 200 tons. She was built for Boston merchants 
in 1642. When ready to sail on her maiden voyage to 
Fayal, with pipe staves and fish, Mr. Cotton “was 
desired to preach aboard her,” but delivered his sermon 
in the meeting house because “the audience would be 
too great for the ship.” In 1643 the Trial was sent 
to Bilbao, in Spain, with fish, which was sold there at a 
good rate, and from thence she freighted for Malaga. 
She arrived in Boston March 23, 1644, laden with wine, 
fruit, oil, iron and wool, “which was of great advantage 
to the country and gave encouragement to trade.” As 
soon as she was again fitted, she was sent to trade with 
the French along the eastern coast towards Canada. 

This record of Winthrop’s, regarding the ventures of 
the Trial, is typical of the course of early trade in the 
Bay. Fish was the staple commodity for barter with 
foreign ports from the first. The fisheries constituted 
the principal commercial resource of the colony and were 
carefully promoted by its government. It was said that 
in 1641 300,000 dry fish were sent to market. The 


Boston and the Fisheries. 


Ill 


Bay fisheries seem first to have been undertaken in 1633 
by men of Dorchester, who engaged actively in the fur 
trade also. It was claimed that the Bay cod were twice 
as large as those caught on the Grand Banks. Capt. 
John Smith had declared that the New England fisheries 
promised better than the “best mine the King of Spain 
hath.” In the working of this mine, the Bay colonists 
developed great energy and enterprise, so that fish was a 
staple commodity throughout the Colonial and Provincial 
periods. The General Court took measures for the pro¬ 
motion and protection of the fishery. Thus, in 1639, 
vessels and stock engaged in fishing were exempted from 
“all country charges” for seven years, and it is note¬ 
worthy that fishermen and shipwrights were exempted 
from military duties. The Rev. Hugh Peter, in 1635, 
was very active in his efforts to procure capital to set 
up a fishing business in Massachusetts. The importance 
of the fishery was a favorite topic in his pulpit deliverances 
at Boston and Salem. 

The British State Papers of 1664 are authority for the 
statement that Boston, with 14,300 (sic) souls had a 
great trade to Barbadoes in fish and other provisions; 
300 vessels traded to the West Indies, Virginia, Madeira, 
etc., and 1,300 “boats” fished in the waters about Cape 
Sable, and there was a great mackerel fishery in Cape 
Cod Bay. It may be that “Boston,” as was frequently 
the case, here meant Massachusetts. 

The wars between England and France caused fluctua¬ 
tions in the trade of New England. Thus, during King 
George’s War, which broke out in 1744, the exports of 
codfish from Massachusetts Bay in 1748 were only some 
53,000 quintals, whereas in 1716 they had amounted to 
120,384 quintals. In 1769 the merchants of Boston cal- 


112 


Boston and Its Story. 


culated that upwards of 400 vessels were constantly 
employed in the fishery, whose annual profits of upwards 
of £160,000 were remitted to meet the cost of imports 
from Great Britain. 

Boston, like other towns, sometimes made special 
efforts to promote the fishing interest. In 1753, while 
the French and Indian War was waging, the Town leased 
Deer Island at an annual rent of 20 shillings for seven years 
to a company that had set up a fishing station at Point 
Shirley, in Chelsea, on condition that twenty vessels 
belonging to the inhabitants of Boston should be employed 
constantly. In 1758, because of depredations by the 
French on the fishing fleet, the lessees of Deer Island 
surrendered their lease. 

In 1781, less than two months after the surrender of 
Cornwallis at Yorktown, the Town Meeting of Boston 
adopted vigorous instructions to its Representatives, 
and voted to incorporate them in a circular letter to the 
other maritime towns of Massachusetts. This action 
was taken in response to a letter from the Town of 
Marblehead in relation to “the Fishery.” As usual, 
the “Hon ble Samuel Adams, Esq r .” was placed at 
the head of the committee to draft the instructions and 
the circular letter. The instructions say: 

“In a Time of Peace — We must depend only upon 
the Staple Commodities of our own Country for the Sup¬ 
port of our commerce. These commodities exclusive of 
the Fishery, will consist only of Lumber, and a small 
quantity of Inland Provisions. These Articles were never 
supposed more than Sufficient to ballance our West 
India Importations; for every European Article of con¬ 
sumption therefore (which was formerly paid for by our 
Fish and Oyl) the Trade must be in debt.” 


The Fisheries of Massachusetts. 


113 


The instructions conclude: 

“We instruct and direct you, in the Approaching 
Sessions of the Legislature of this Commonwealth to move 
for and to use your influence to procure an Application 
to Congress, that they would give positive Instructions to 
their Commissioners for negotiating a Peace, to make 
the right of the United States to the Fishery an Independ¬ 
ent Article of the Treaty.” 

The instructions of Boston to its Representatives in 
1783 contain the following injunction: 

“You will always remember that you represent a Trad¬ 
ing Town; and therefore while you justly give your 
Attention to every Consideration which may lead to 
promote Agriculture in its utmost extent, you will not 
fail to exert yourselves in proposing and enforcing every 
Measure Adapted to cherish and extend our Trade, and 
to encourage the Fishery, which by the Blessing of 
Heaven is secured to us by the Treaty of Peace.” 

Now, as from the beginning, the fisheries constitute an 
important industry in Massachusetts, notwithstanding 
the fact that manufactures, transportation and trade 
each employ vastly greater numbers of persons and 
amounts of capital. Returns of the last Federal Census 
show, for 1908, that Massachusetts ranked first among 
the States of the Union as to (a) capital invested in 
fishing; ( b ) value of fishing vessels; and (c) the value of 
products,— although she was third as regards number of 
vessels and of persons employed. For the whole country, 
among products of the fisheries, oysters, salmon and cod 
were ranked in the order named as to value. 

Massachusetts stood first as to the catch of 18 species 
of salt-water food fish, including cod, haddock and 


114 


Boston and Its Story. 


mackerel. The fishing industry of the state centers in 
Gloucester and Boston. For these ports, the best 
available returns are for 1905. In that year, the Glouces¬ 
ter fleet numbered 313 vessels, aggregating 24,776 tons, 
and gave employment to 4,264 fishermen; the corre¬ 
sponding figures for Boston being 109 vessels, 8,898 tons, 
and 1,669 fishermen. Investments in sea and shore 
fisheries amounted to $4,594,000 in Gloucester, against 
$1,425,000 in Boston. The value of food fish returned 
was $3,343,000 for the former, and $2,385,000 for the 
latter. The value of food fish preparations, including 
pickled and salted fish, was $6,707,000 for Gloucester, and 
$618,000 for Boston. 

But Boston outranks every other port in the country 
as a market for fresh fish, oysters being excluded. In 
1914, receipts of fresh fish at Boston amounted to 922,311 
quintals, valued at $2,609,877, against 493,438 quintals, 
valued at $1,031,769, landed at Gloucester. In the 
same year, 99.8 per cent of the fish landed at Boston were 
classed as fresh and 0.2 as salt, whereas at Gloucester 
the corresponding per cents were 57.9 and 42.1. 

During its growth and prosperity, the American whale 
fishery centered in Massachusetts. It does so still, 
although the industry has dwindled to a pitiful remnant 
of its former proportions. The value of its products 
amounted to $2,323,000 in 1880, but to only $497,000 in 
1908. In 1908 the whalers of Massachusetts, hailing 
mostly from New Bedford, were credited with $89,000 
worth of whalebone, or 45 per cent of the United States; and 
$247,000 worth of oil, or 88 per cent of the United States. 

The whale fishery of New England had its beginning 
in the last half of the seventeenth century in the salvage 
of stranded whales on the shores of the Island of Nan- 


The Whale Fishery. 


115 


tucket and of Cape Cod. Whale hunting in boats was 
the next step. It culminated at Nantucket in 1726, when 
the catch numbered 86. For the whaleboat and the 
schooner, a foremost place among Yankee inventions may 
be claimed. The first schooner rigged vessel was built 
at Gloucester in 1714, but the development of the whale¬ 
boat began still earlier. 

As the shore and boat fishery of the right whale grew 
less, ventures in sea-going craft increased. The first 
vessel in this business was registered in 1698 at Nan¬ 
tucket, where 9 sloops were registered in 1714, a year 
after the pursuit of sperm whales began. The “Hope,” 
of 40 tons, built in Boston, was the largest. In 1730 
the number of vessels had increased to 25, with an out¬ 
put of 3,700 barrels of oil. 

John Hull, the mintmaster, is said to have started in 
Boston the exporting of whale oil about 1670. At any 
rate, Boston was the principal commercial port for the 
whale fishery in its early period. Randolph noted the 
export to England of 200 tons of oil in 1687. In 1745, 
just before the Nantucketers began to hunt whales in 
Arctic waters, they sent 10,000 barrels of oil to Boston. 
The British government encouraged this fishery by a 
bounty of 40 shillings a ton for oil in 1745. The manu¬ 
facture of sperm candles was a derivative result of the 
sperm whale fishery. In 1761 New England had 8 such 
factories and Philadelphia one. 

The industry suffered a severe set back at the out¬ 
break of the Revolution, when Nantucket, which was 
still its chief center, had more than 150 vessels, averag¬ 
ing 100 tons, afloat. The estimated annual produce of 
the fishery, when the Boston Port Bill took effect, was: 
53,500 barrels of oil and 75,000 pounds of bone. In 


116 


Boston and Its Story. 


1775 Massachusetts gave bounties for the encourage¬ 
ment of the fishery; but it continued to languish till 
after the close of the war. About 1789 the pursuit of 
whales was extended to the Pacific Ocean. 

“The Golden Age of the business was in the years 
1835-46. Then the United States, and chiefly New 
England, employed 678 ships and barks, 35 brigs, 22 
schooners. They registered 233,189 tons, and were 
valued at $21,075,000. At the same time, the foreign 
fleet included 230 vessels. . . . After the full develop¬ 
ment of the deep sea fishery, New England easily led all 
the world.” 

In 1629, when the Bay Company was incorporated, the 
colonial policy of England was largely what the King 
chose to make it,— Parliament had practically no say in 
the matter. Moreover, the commercial policy of the 
Kingdom was still ill-defined and feeble. Under its 
charter, the Company was free “to transport to New 
England persons and commodities of every sort without 
paying any custom or subsidy either inward or outward 
for seven years.” It was likewise exempted for twenty- 
one years from all taxes and impositions upon imports 
or exports so far as the realm of England was concerned. 

In the period 1630-40, despite the machinations of 
Archbishop Laud, Sir F. Gorges and others of the King’s 
party against the chartered rights of the Bay Company, 
immigrants poured into New England through the port 
of Boston, and the Bay Company was transformed by 
the informing Puritan spirit into an almost independent 
state. The founders of Massachusetts, enjoying the 
privileges of free trade, were able to work out their 
economic development in their own way. 

Under the stimulus of opportunity, their commercial 


Beginnings of Commerce. 


117 


instincts were speedily aroused. Accordingly, the trade 
of Boston grew both in volume and variety from the first, 
by reason of the enterprise shown in developing coastwise 
traffic in fish and furs, corn and tobacco. Thus, in May, 
1631, there arrived in Boston a pinnace from Virginia 
laden with corn and tobacco, and in 1634 a single vessel 
brought 10,000 bushels of corn from thence. Winthrop’s 
bark, the Blessing of the Bay, launched in 1631, traded 
with the Dutch at Manhattan, and with Saint Kitts, one 
of the West India Islands, as well as with English settle¬ 
ments in New Hampshire and Maine. Winthrop makes 
frequent mention of the arrival at Boston, in coastwise 
craft, of passengers bound for England. In 1633 a small 
ship of sixty tons was built at Medford. This craft, 
“The Rebecca/’ in 1634 brought 500 bushels of corn 
from Narragansett, and in March, 1636, arrived from 
Bermuda “with 30,000 weight of potatoes, and store of 
oranges and limes.” The number of craft engaged in this 
early coastwise trade cannot be stated, but in 1635 the 
number of English ships trading to New England was put 
at more than “forty sail,” of which “six at least” were 
said to belong in New England. 

In the period 1640-60, which was signalized by the 
Civil War, the emergence and downfall of the Puritan 
Commonwealth in England, the Puritan Commonwealth 
in the Bay continued to prosper. In 1643 the Long 
Parliament showed its favor by formally granting it free 
trade. This measure seems to have stimulated industrial 
enterprise in and about Boston. Massachusetts fisher¬ 
men began to extend their operations to the Banks of 
Newfoundland. Exportation of masts to England, which 
began as early as 1634, attained large proportions. Ship¬ 
building began in Boston in 1642, where a rope-walk had 


118 


Boston and Its Story. 


been started in 1641. By 1719 there were fourteen ship¬ 
yards in Boston, and by 1741 it sustained an equal 
number of rope-walks. 

It was officially set forth by the Lords of Trade, in 
1721, respecting the Province of Massachusetts, that the 
people had “all sorts of common manufactures, but that 
the branch of trade that was of most importance to them, 
and which they were best enabled to carry on was the 
building of ships, sloops, etc.” About 150 vessels were 
built in a year, measuring 6,000 tons, mostly for sale 
abroad, while there were about 190 sail owned in the 
Province, besides 150 boats employed in the coast fisheries. 

In 1736 there were 43 vessels on the stocks at one time 
in Boston, and 41 in 1738. In 1749 the number of such 
vessels had declined to 15. But the decline of ship¬ 
building at Boston in this period is attributable in some 
measure to its increase in other towns of Massachusetts, 
e. g., Gloucester and Haverhill. It is said that in the 
period 1769-71, “more than one half of the American 
tonnage, or from 10,000 to 12,000 tons, were built in Mas¬ 
sachusetts and New Hampshire. 

By 1642 the manufacture of linen and cotton cloth had 
begun on a modest scale, and in 1643, when Boston granted 
3,000 acres of land to John Winthrop, Jr., and his asso¬ 
ciates for the encouragement of the iron works at Brain¬ 
tree, ambitious undertakings for the smelting of native 
iron ore were projected. But ship building was the lead¬ 
ing branch of manufactures in Boston for more than a 
century. About this time, trade with the West Indies 
became more active, and Boston merchants extended their 
trade to the Azores and the Canary Islands, as well as to 
Spain and Portugal. The brisk trade with the West 
Indies brought in much Spanish silver, some of it counter- 


The Navigation Act. 


119 


feit. So, in 1652, the General Court established a mint 
in Boston, and John Hull of Boston, a leading business 
man and an extensive ship owner, was made mintmaster. 
The mint was discontinued when Andros was Governor. 

During the Protectorate of Cromwell, the commercial 
policy of England became more vigorous and definite. 
Originally instituted for the purpose of wresting commer¬ 
cial supremacy from the Dutch, it exerted a powerful and 
malign influence upon the development of the colonial 
policy of the British government for over a century after 
the Restoration in 1660. 

Cromwell's Navigation Act of 1651 provided that all 
colonial trade should be carried on in ships built and 
owned in England or her colonies, and that as regards 
certain commodities, trade should be with England only. 
But Cromwell did not enforce the act against New 
England. 

The Restoration in 1660 marked the opening of a new 
era in the history of the American colonies. The British 
government set about controlling both the trade and 
internal affairs of its overseas dependencies. The Council 
for Trade and Plantations was revived. This was the 
forerunner of the Lords of Trade whose ill-judged activity 
in the eighteenth century proved a potent factor in the 
alienation of the colonies. In 1660 and 1663 the Navi¬ 
gation Act was re-enacted. Notwithstanding repeated 
threats to the contrary, strenuous efforts to enforce it 
were not made for a dozen years. Possibly Charles the 
Second's rising displeasure with the Bay Colony was 
somewhat mitigated for a time, by the present, in 1666, 
of masts for the royal navy which are said to have cost 
the General Court £2,000. Mention is made of a present 
to the King of samp, cranberries and codfish from Massa- 


120 


Boston and Its Story. 


chusetts and the Merry Monarch’s favorite oath is said 
to have been “Cod’s fish !” 

But complaints continued against Massachusetts and, 
in 1676, Edward Randolph, who became its inveterate 
enemy, arrived in Boston as an agent of the Crown. After 
two months’ stay, during which his attention was chiefly 
confined to the colony, “ commonly called the Corporation 
of Boston,” he returned to England, and made a highly 
interesting report of his investigations. In Boston, “the 
mart-town of the West Indies,” there was “ no notice taken 
of the Act of Navigation.” It had extensive commerce 
with “most parts of Europe.” Vessels had been sent 
even “to Guinea, Madagascar and those coasts laden with 
masts and yards for ships.” He reported that the “ves¬ 
sels built in or belonging to that colony” numbered thirty, 
ranging between 100 and 250 tons’ burden, besides 700 
of less than 100 tons. 

Randolph, who is said to have made eight voyages to 
New England in nine years, succeeded in inducing Charles 
II. to institute more rigorous measures for the control of 
New England. Late in 1679 he arrived for the second 
time in Boston, having been appointed “collector, sur¬ 
veyor, and searcher of customs” in all the New England 
colonies. He brought a letter from the King, enjoining 
“a strict obedience to the Acts of Trade and Navigation.” 
Randolph seized several vessels, but could not secure their 
condemnation by the courts. He formally complained 
to the King against the obstructive and evasive “Bos- 
toneers,” charging, among, other things, that through 
their violation of the acts and consequent engrossment of 
the West India trade, his Majesty was annually deprived 
of £100,000 in the customs. In 1681 he returned from 
England with enlarged powers and brought still more 



SIMON BRADSTREET, THE LAST COLONIAL GOVERNOR 





Free Trade in Massachusetts. 


121 


peremptory orders from the crown, coupled with threats 
against the charter, although the General Court in 1679 
had passed an act requiring compliance with the Naviga¬ 
tion Act. 

The struggle went on and resulted in the revocation 
of the Charter in 1684; seizure of the Colony’s liberties 
into the King’s hands in 1686; and Andros’s tyranny 
from 1686-89. So in its clash with the Crown over 
restrictions on its trade, the Bay Colony lost its charter 
and w T as reduced to the condition of a Royal Province. 

But it should be remembered that in 1679, after pro¬ 
fessing compliance with the royal commands, the General 
Court wrote to its agents regarding the Acts of Trade 
and Navigation that “they apprehended them to be an 
invasion of the rights, liberties, and properties of the 
subjects of his Majesty in this Colony, they not being 
represented in parliament, etc.” It is rather startling to 
find the kernel of Sam Adams’s argument against the 
Stamp Act set forth in 1679 by a General Court, pre¬ 
sided over by the conservative Simon Bradstreet, who 
had been a Magistrate ever since 1629. With Bradstreet’s 
death in 1697, at the age of ninety-four, the last of the 
founders of Massachusetts passed away. 

Massachusetts down to 1692 enjoyed free, open trade 
with all the world, by reason of the fact that the restric¬ 
tive measures of the Stuarts were little better than dead 
letters, owing to the feeble efforts of the authorities to 
secure their enforcement and the success of the merchants 
in evading them. King William III., like his successors, 
was committed to a vigorous commercial and colonial 
policy, but it was reserved for the House of Hanover 
to develop that policy to such a degree as to infuriate 
and alienate all America. 


122 


Boston and Its Story. 


The Royal Governors of Massachusetts from Andros 
to Gage were generally placemen. Hutchinson’s com¬ 
ment on Governor Burnet is applicable to most of them. 
“He did not know the temper of the people of New Eng¬ 
land. They have a strong sense of liberty, and are more 
easily drawn than driven.” Sir William Phips, the 
first Royal Governor, was a self-made man and a native 
New Englander, but not a Massachusetts man. He was 
the son of a Maine mechanic, and became a shipmaster. 
His success in raising a Spanish treasure ship and his 
extraordinary honesty in turning all of the recovered 
treasure, some £300,000 in value, over to his employers 
won him his knighthood. But Phips was a better ship¬ 
master than Governor. He was a two-fisted brawler and 
was summoned to England, where he died in 1698, to 
answer complaints against certain high-handed proceed¬ 
ings against the King’s agents in Boston. 

The Earl of Bellomont, a rather easy-going personage, 
succeeded Phips. He occupied two gubernatorial chairs, 
being at once Governor of Massachusetts and Governor 
of New York. He died in New York in 1701. His suc¬ 
cessor in Massachusetts was Joseph Dudley, a native of 
Roxbury, who was succeeded by Samuel Shute, an English¬ 
man, in 1716, in whose administration the struggle 
between the colonists and the Royal Governors may be 
said to have begun. 

Bellomont was impressed by the extent of Boston’s 
trade, and ventured the statement that “there were 
more ships belonging to the town of Boston than to all 
Scotland and Ireland.” He reported that in 1698, when 
there were 63 wharves in Boston and 14 in Charlestown, 
193 ships were owned in Boston. In 1709 Governor Dudley 


Commerce of Boston, 1709 - 16 . 


123 


set their number at 250. In 1716 the value of exports 
from New England was estimated at £300,000. 

The returns of the commerce of Boston for the three 
years ending June 4, 1717, accounted for the clearance of 
1,267 vessels (of which 1,200 were plantation built), 
amounting to 62,688 tons, and employing upwards of 
8,000 men. This was an average of 422 vessels, and of 
more than 20,000 tons for the three years. The clearances 
from the port of New York for the same period averaged 
7,000 tons. The following statement shows the destina¬ 
tion of the vessels outward bound from Boston in the 
period mentioned. 

Cleared for: 


West Indies. 518 

British Plantations.... 390 
(coastwise?) 

Great Britain. 143 

Foreign plantations... 58 

Newfoundland. 45 


Europe. 43 

Madeira, Azores, etc... 34 

Bay of Campeachy in 

Mexico. 25 

Ports unknown. 11 


In the first quarter of the eighteenth century, the 
manufacture of rum from molasses introduced a new 
element into the industrial and commercial activities of 
Boston and New England. The beginnings of the dis¬ 
tilling industry are rather obscure. Originally, molasses 
appears to have been considered a useless by-product by 
the sugar planters of the West Indies, so that Boston 
traders secured an abundant supply of it at favorable 
rates in exchange for fish. Emanuel Downing, Governor 
Winthrop’s brother-in-law, began distilling in Salem, in 








124 


Boston and Its Story. 


1648. Mention is made of a stillhouse in 1714 in Boston, 
which, a dozen years later, was credited with eight such 
establishments. 

The Molasses Act, passed by Parliament in 1733, 
levied a prohibitive duty of 6 d. per gallon upon molasses 
imported into the Colonies from other than British ports. 
It aimed at the breaking up of trade with the French, 
Dutch and Spanish islands which furnished Massachusetts 
and Rhode Island distillers with most of their molasses. 
In 1764 the duty was reduced to 3d. per gallon. But the 
acts were evaded and rum continued to be a staple com¬ 
modity in colonial trade, and a cause of friction with 
the British government for more than a generation. 
The enforcement of the Molasses Act, as in the case of 
the Navigation Act, was lax and fitful and at times 
corrupt. It has been noted that during the middle 
third of the eighteenth century, “The whole commercial 
atmosphere of the colonies was surcharged with illicit 
trade in one or another form.” 

The Boston Town Meeting appealed to the General 
Court in 1735 for an abatement in the Province tax, and 
alleged that the Molasses Act had lessened “the Distil¬ 
lery of this Town at least one half,” thereby interfering 
with the export of rum to almost all parts of British 
America. Consequently trade was hampered with New¬ 
foundland as well as with the Carolinas, etc., for naval 
stores, rice, grain and flour. 

In 1742, when Boston renewed its plea for abatement 
of taxes, the Town Meeting’s memorial declared that the 
general trade of the Town was less by one half than in 
1735, the amount of molasses distilled was barely two 
thirds of what it had been in that year; trade with the 
West Indies was “reduced to almost nothing,” as was 


The Distilling Industry. 


125 


the building of ships, which had formerly given employ¬ 
ment to more persons than all other branches of trade 
taken together. 

Incidentally, it may be noted that in the period 
1735-42, the Town Rate rose from £7,800 to £11,000; 
the charge for the poor from £2,070 to £5,000; the support 
of the ministry from £8,000 to £12,000. Moreover, the 
excessively high price of provisions was a source of 
impoverishment to Boston. An influential factor in the 
unsatisfactory condition of Boston’s finances and com¬ 
merce at this time was the inflation of the currency, 
caused by the issue of paper money, that had been going 
on for more than twenty years. 

Doubtless the commerce and manufactures of Boston 
were deranged at times, owing to annoying instructions 
from his Majesty to the Governors of Massachusetts; to 
economic disturbances, owing to England’s frequent wars 
with continental powers; and to the stubborn insistence 
of the merchants on trading with whom they pleased. 
But in spite of the lugubrious utterances of Bostonians 
and others as to the decline of the Town’s commerce, the 
fact remains that notwithstanding increased competition 
with other colonial ports, and of restrictive measures by 
the British government, Boston never lost its primacy as a 
port until it was closed by the Boston Port Act in 1774. 

It is certain that trade was brisk in 1750, and that rum 
helped to make it so. Rum from Boston or Newport 
distilleries was then the staple export in the ventures to 
the Gold Coast in exchange for negroes and gold dust. In 
an official document it was reported that in 1750 there 
were 63 distilleries in Massachusetts, in which more 
than 15,000 hogsheads of molasses were consumed. 
The report notes that rum served as merchandise for 


126 


Boston and Its Story. 


Guinea, the Banks of Newfoundland, and the southern 
colonies, “and as store for consumption of about 900 ves¬ 
sels engaged in the various branches of their trade at sea.” 
The report also mentioned that 200 vessels were engaged 
annually in the mackerel and other small catch for the 
West Indies; 400 vessels in the cod fishery; and 100 in 
the whale fishery. In another official statement, dated in 
1764, it was estimated that for more than 30 years 
Rhode Island had annually sent 18 vessels with 1,800 
hogsheads of rum to the Gold Coast. The Guinea negroes 
were mostly disposed of in the West Indies or the southern 
colonies. Still, there was a market for slaves in Massa¬ 
chusetts as in Rhode Island, even in the second third of 
the eighteenth century. A writer in the Boston News Letter, 
in 1769, claimed that 23,743 negroes were imported “ into 
this province,” in the period 1756-66. Very likely the 
negroes entered at Newport, R. I., were included in the 
total credited to Massachusetts. In 1774 the New Eng¬ 
land colonies forbade the importation of negroes. But 
the manufacture of New England rum continued to be an 
important and lucrative interest in Massachusetts long 
after the Revolution. 

The distilling of rum from molasses still centers in Bos¬ 
ton and its immediate vicinity. In 1914, out of 19 such 
concerns in the United States, 6 were in Massachusetts, 
and 3 in Boston. In the fiscal year 1915, the exports of 
rum from Boston amounted to 1,161,435 gallons, valued 
at $1,555,086. In other words, the exports of rum 
from Boston in 1915 equalled 94 per cent of the total 
quantity exported from the United States, and 98 per 
cent of its value. In the five years 1910-14, the annual 
value of the rum exported from Boston averaged 
$1,649,000. Most of it went to the West Coast of Africa. 


The Molasses and Stamp Acts. 


127 


In the period 1764-74, the relations of England and 
her American colonies became strained to the breaking 
point. The triumphant close for England of the French 
and Indian War, in 1763, removed one of the strongest 
bonds between the mother country and the colonies. The 
colonial policy of the British government grew increasingly 
arbitrary and exasperating. Grenville’s Ministry under¬ 
took: to enforce the acts of Trade and Navigation more 
stringently than they ever had been; to raise revenue for 
the imperial treasury by taxation of the colonies; and 
to establish a Colonial Department, in place of the Lords 
of Trade, for the more effectual control of all the colonies. 

In 1764, Parliament re-enacted the Molasses Act of 
1733, in such terms as to protect the British West Indian 
planters as against the northern colonies. The sugar 
plantations in the British West Indies were, in large part, 
owned by men resident in England, who were able to 
influence parliamentary elections, while the colonists had 
no votes in Parliament to trade with the King’s friends. 

The Massachusetts General Court protested that the 
effect of the act would be to close the markets, both in 
the West Indies and in Europe, against New England 
fish — thus rendering useless vessels worth £100,000, and 
throwing 5,000 seamen out of employment. 

In 1765, the Stamp Act was passed. It met with such 
opposition on both sides of the water as to cause its repeal 
in 1766. But in that year, to save the face of the govern¬ 
ment, the Declaratory Act was passed, which asserted 
the right of Parliament fo tax the American colonies. 
Hutchinson dates the revolt of the colonies from 1766. 
At any rate, the Declaratory Act aroused renewed appre¬ 
hension and resentment in Massachusetts. In 1767, the 
Townshend Act, levying colonial taxes on glass, lead, 


128 


Boston and Its Story. 


paints, paper and tea, was passed. The East India Com¬ 
pany, although it had a practical monopoly of the tea 
trade, was in financial straits. The act remitted the 
export duty from England of one shilling per pound, but 
laid a duty of three pence per pound on teas imported 
into America from England. But the colonies were not 
to be cajoled by the proffer of cheaper teas at the expense 
of what they deemed their inalienable right — not to be 
taxed by the British Parliament in which they were not 
represented. Moreover, the New Englanders, like the 
English, could procure smuggled tea from Holland. The 
East India Company claimed that the annual consumption 
of tea in America at this period amounted to more than 
£3,000,000 in value. 

In Boston, the act led the Town Meeting to declare 
against the importation of English commodities, and in 
1768, a combination was formed “to eat nothing, to drink 
nothing, to wear nothing imported from Great Britain, ’* 
and the merchants agreed not to import British goods. 
Accordingly, English exports to New England declined 
from £430,809 in 1768 to £223,696 in 1769, or 48 per cent. 

In 1770, Parliament, acknowledging that the Town- 
shend Act embodied a mistaken commercial policy, 
repealed all the taxes levied under the act, except that on 
tea. The retention of the tea tax was attributed to the 
insistence of the King, who was said to “have Boston on 
the brain. ” 

Late in 1773, a crisis was precipitated by the arrival of 
vessels from England with cargoes of tea, consigned to 
agents of the East India Company. The company also 
sent consignments to its agents in New York, Philadel¬ 
phia, and Charleston, S. C. Vigorous opposition in all 
four colonies defeated the purposes of the East India 


The Boston Port Bill. 


129 


Company. But the “ Boston Tea Party/’ on December 
16,1773, when a party of Bostonians, disguised as Mohawk 
Indians, threw the cargoes of three vessels into th e harbor, 
drew upon Boston’s devoted head the resentment of the 
King and Parliament. 

In order to punish Boston, the Boston Port Act was 
passed in March, 1774. It provided that Boston should 
cease to be a port of entry on the first of June, 1774, unless 
the Town would indemnify the East India Company for 
the loss of its teas; and furthermore, that the adminis¬ 
trative offices of the colony should be removed to Salem. 

The Port Act was followed by the Regulating Act which 
practically annulled the charter of the Province without 
notice. It provided that members of the Council should 
thereafter be appointed by the King. The act also forbade 
town meetings throughout the Province, except for hold¬ 
ing annual elections, or by the special permission of the 
Governor for the consideration of matters prescribed by 
him. Another act legalized the quartering of British 
troops in Boston or in other towns. 

General Gage, the commander-in-chief of his Majesty’s 
forces in America, was sent to^Boston as Royal Governor 
of Massachusetts, to enforce these acts. Gage was the 
second professional soldier to be made Governor of 
Massachusetts. As in the case of Andros, his predecessor, 
his administration ended in a revolution! 

On June 1, 1774, the Boston Port Bill took effect. At 
noon, when the custom house was closed, the bells were 
tolled. “The ruin, and starvation of Boston at once 
began. The industry of a place which lived by the build¬ 
ing, sailing, and unloading of ships was annihilated in a 
single moment.” The act was so drastic that the move¬ 
ment of boats from wharf to wharf, or of scows from the 


130 


Boston and Its Story. 


islands in the harbor to the town, and even the passage 
of ferry boats was interdicted. Some notion of the extent 
of Boston’s commerce at this time may be gathered 
from the following statement concerning entries and 
clearances of the port in the year 1773: 

Entries. Clearances. 

1773. 1773. 

From West Indies. 192 From West Indies. 134 

Great Britain. 71 Great Britain. 26 

Other Ports. 324 Other Ports. 251 

587 411 

The woful plight of Boston aroused sympathy through¬ 
out the Province and the colonies. The suffering town 
received aid in cash and provisions from near and far. 
The largest contribution in money was £3,000 from South 
Carolina. The cause of Boston shortly became that of 
the colonies, and led to the calling of the first Continental 
Congress, which met in September, 1774, in Philadelphia. 

Meanwhile, the Town Meeting took active measures to 
meet the exigency. A Committee of Ways and Means 
to succor the poor of the town was appointed, and various 
public works to provide them with employment were 
authorized. Through the Committee of Correspondence, 
an appeal was sent to all the other colonies “to stop all 
Importations from Great Britain and Exportations to 
Great Britain and every part of the West Indies till the 
Act for Blocking up this Harbor be repealed.” 

When the Continental Congress met in September, 
1774, it unanimously resolved that after the first day of 
the following December there should be no importation, 
purchase or use of commodities from Great Britain or 
Ireland, and that after a year, “unless the grievances of 
America are redressed before that time, exportations to 











THE OLD NORTH CHURCH. 


From the steeple of this church Paul Revere's lanterns were hung the night of 
April 18, 177 5. 










































Boston the Lord Mayor of America. 131 

those countries from the colonies should cease.” It may 
be noted that British exports to New England averaged 
£409,000 annually in the five years preceding the Revolu¬ 
tion, against imports averaging £384,000 in value. 

When the new Parliament met it was confronted by a 
very different state of affairs from that anticipated by its 
predecessor, which had been assured by the Prime Min¬ 
ister that “By punishing Boston, all America would be 
struck with a panic.” Edmund Burke assured Parliament 
that the “cause of Boston is become the cause of all 
America. By these acts of oppression, you have made 
Boston the Lord Mayor of America.” But Parliament 
proceeded, in the spring of 1775, to enact the Restraining 
Bill, which forbade trade from New England ports except 
to the British Isles and the British West India Islands. 
Meanwhile, the contest between Governor Gage and the 
Town of Boston proceeded on such lines as to lead to 
armed revolt at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill 
in 1775. Thus, Boston furnished the scene and the 
actors in the opening act of the drama of the American 
Revolution. 

Maritime enterprise in Massachusetts during the 
Revolution was largely diverted into privateering, which 
proved a profitable business, although a considerable 
trade with French ports was developed also. During 
the war, the number of registered privateers belonging to 
Boston rose to 365, while those of Salem numbered 180. 
Local trade was considerably stimulated by the arrival of 
the French fleet in 1780. 

After the close of the war, in 1783, the trade of Boston 
began to resume its wonted channels as regards the fishery 
and shipbuilding. But Great Britain obstinately clung 
to its old commercial policy and refused to modify the 


132 


Boston and Its Story. 


Navigation Act or to permit reciprocity in trade between 
its ports and those of the United States. In the commer¬ 
cial warfare that followed, the merchants of Massachu¬ 
setts had to seek new markets, so embarrassing were the 
British restrictions on commerce between the United 
States and the ports of the United Kingdom and its 
remaining colonies in America. In 1849, Great Britain 
first allowed vessels from the United States to carry cargoes 
from the British West Indies to England. It was not 
till 1854 that reciprocity in trade was established by treaty 
between the British possessions in America and the United 
States. Unfortunately, the treaty was abrogated by the 
United States in 1866. 

The British orders in council were intended to shut 
American ships out of the carrying trade and to prevent 
commercial intercourse between the British West Indies 
and the United States in any but British ships. In 1786, 
Parliament passed an act forbidding British subjects to 
own or employ any American-built ship unless it were 
built before 1776, although ships could be built in New 
England and sold in England for one-third less than 
British-built vessels. Nevertheless, by 1788, commercial 
prosperity had begun to smile again on Boston. The 
building of larger ships had begun, and Boston and Salem 
merchants were already fitting out vessels for China and 
the East Indies. 

At the beginning of August, 1788, “trade continued 
brisk” in Boston, when exports aggregating some £216,000 
for a year were reported, and four large ships of 300 tons 
were about to be launched. Among the leading exports, 
one finds mention of: fish, £66,245; New England rum, 
£50,620; oil, £34,864, and pot and pearl ashes, £30,485. 



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Boston’s Trade with China. 


133 


In July, 1788, orders were received in Boston, from an 
American agent in Canton, for the building of a larger 
ship than had ever been constructed in America. Accord¬ 
ingly, the “Massachusetts” of 820 tons, and “of a remark¬ 
ably fine model” was laid down in Germantown (in 
Quincy, near Boston). She was suited with sails and 
cordage made in Boston. She was launched in Sep¬ 
tember, 1789, and seven months later sailed for Batavia 
and Canton. In Canton she was sold for $65,000. 

In 1789, Boston sent 44 vessels to the northwest coast, 
to India and to China. 

The beginnings of the trade with China, via the Isle 
of France (Mauritius), was made by a Salem ship, the 
“Grand Turk,” in 1758. In 1787 the French opened the 
isles of France and Bourbon to Americans on equal terms 
with their own citizens. Of 23 American vessels arrived 
in those island in 1789, 16 were Boston or Salem craft. 

In this branch of the China trade, outward bound ships 
carried mixed cargoes of goods imported from the Conti¬ 
nent of Europe, besides West India goods and domestic 
products of the United States. The same ships, returning, 
brought teas and coffee, spices, silks and muslins, for which 
there was an active demand in the principal ports on the 
Atlantic seaboard that had close commercial relations with 
Boston. 

Massachusetts enjoyed a large share of the trade with 
Russia, which had begun as early as 1784. In 1803, of 
90 American vessels arrived at St. Petersburg, in the 
course of three months, 54 belonged in Massachusetts. 
Iron bars and rods in large quantities, imported from 
Russia, were utilized by the slitting mills of Massachu¬ 
setts, which, about 1790, began the making of nails and 


134 


Boston and Its Story. 


screws by machinery. The Russia trade continued to be 
large and profitable till the outbreak of the Civil War 
in 1861. 

The first American vessels to circumnavigate the globe 
were the Boston ship “ Columbia,” of 212 tons, and the 
sloop “Washington,” of 90 tons. They were fitted out 
by an association of Boston merchants, and despatched, 
in 1787, to the Pacific coast to procure furs from the 
Indians, to be exchanged for teas in Canton. After an 
absence of nearly three years, the Columbia arrived in 
Boston on August 10, 1790, when “the whole population 
of the town assembled on the wharves to welcome her.” 

In May, 1792, Captain Gray of Boston, in the Colum¬ 
bia, discovered the great river of Oregon and named it 
after his ship. It is said that the Indians on that coast 
called all white men “Bostonais.” Subsequently, the 
trade with China, in which the Columbia was the 
pioneer, assumed large proportions, besides stimulating 
the shipyards of Boston to produce larger and faster ships. 
In the two and one half years ending January 9, 1803, of 
34,357 sea-otter skins imported into China, valued at 
about $859,000, 88.5 per cent were carried in Boston 
vessels. During the same period over one million seal 
skins were sent from the northwest coast to China. They 
were worth perhaps $900,000. 

The China trade of Boston culminated about the middle 
of the nineteenth century. It was unfavorably influenced 
by ill-advised legislation of Massachusetts, in 1824, when 
a tax of 1 per cent was laid on sales of merchandise at 
auction. Cargoes in this trade were then usually disposed 
of at public auction. It was not till 1852 that this handi¬ 
cap was removed; but meanwhile the China trade had 
been largely diverted from Boston to New York. In 


Exports of Ice from Boston. 135 

1857, of 41 ships arrived in New York from China — 20 
belonged in Boston. In the same year, only 6 ships 
arrived from China at Boston. - 

About one hundred years ago the export of ice from 
Boston to Martinique and Jamaica in the West Indies 
was started. In 1833, a small cargo of ice was shipped 
from Boston to Calcutta. The trade thus initiated later 
gave Boston the key to lucrative and extensive commerce 
between Calcutta and the United States. In 1857, 
upwards of 10,000 tons of ice were exported from Boston 
to the East Indies. The trade culminated in 1867, when 
the amount exported was 27,000 tons. In that year the 
foreign and coastwise export of ice from Boston reached 
its maximum, viz., 142,463 tons 

The Calcutta trade of Boston reached its highest 
development in the years 1856-59. Of 122 ships loaded 
for the United States at Calcutta in 1857, carrying 
189,267 tons, valued at $17,000,000, 75 per cent came 
to Boston, and earned freight that was estimated at 
$2,000,000. In the four years noted the average annual 
number of arrivals was 79, with an average tonnage of 
121,271. The greatest number of arrivals in this trade 
was 96 ships in 1857. In 1859, New York began to gain 
upon Boston, but it was not till 1867 that the importa¬ 
tions to New York actually exceeded those to Boston. 
Before the Civil War, 75 per cent of the Calcutta goods 
imported at Boston were shipped again coastwise, thus 
affording a second freight to ship owners. 

During the Colonial and Provincial periods commerce 
with the West Indies bulked large in the trade of Massa¬ 
chusetts and Boston. Thus, in 1676, Randolph character¬ 
ized Boston as the “Mart town of the West Indies.” In 
1709, Massachusetts had 120 ships trading with those 


136 


Boston and Its Story. 


islands, or 48 per cent of all its ships. In 1741, New 
England’s commerce was estimated at £200,000, equally 
divided between Old England and the West Indies. 
In 1773, of 998 entries and clearances at Boston, 326, or 
32.7 per cent, were in the West India trade, against 97, 
or 9.7, with Great Britain. Although intercourse with 
the British West Indies was much hampered by the 
restrictive policy of Great Britain from 1783 to 1849, 
still considerable trade was carried on between American 
ports and those of the non-British islands. Exports from 
Boston to the British and French West Indies in 1790 
amounted to 2.078 and 3.285 million dollars, respectively, 
against 6.889 millions’ worth sent to the United Kingdom. 
Of 392 clearances at Boston in 1793, one hundred and 
nineteen were to the West Indies against 11 to British 
home ports. 

Throughout the nineteenth century Boston maintained 
a considerable trade with the West Indies, but relatively 
it was and is now of less consequence than in the third 
quarter of the eighteenth century, when British restrictions 
upon it proved a potent factor in precipitating the 
Revolution. 

On the basis of values, Boston’s trade with the West 
Indies was 9.8 per cent of its total trade in 1880, and 
6.8 per cent in 1915, as compared with its proportionate 
trade with Great Britain, viz., 69.5 in 1880, and 46.6 in 
1915. 

In 1790, of 542,962 tons entered in the overseas trade 
from all foreign countries, Europe furnished 44.3 per cent 
and the West Indies 49.5. Of the European tonnage, 
viz., 240,485, 47.1 per cent, were owned in the United 
States, 52.5 in foreign countries, and 43.2 in the United 
Kingdom. Of the West India tonnage, viz., 268,735, 62.3 



BIRTHPLACE OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, 17 MILK STREET, WITH 
INSERT OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AT UPPER RIGHT. 










































































































































Shipping at Boston, 1790 . 


137 


per cent were owned in the United States, 37.7 abroad, 
and 34.6 in the United Kingdom. 

In 1790, the aggregate tonnage of entries into ports of 
the United States was 766,091, of which two-thirds 
belonged to the United States, and less than one-third 
to the United Kingdom, and 197,368 tons were entered 
at Massachusetts ports (Boston and Salem), or 25.8 per 
cent of the tonnage entered in the whole country. Massa¬ 
chusetts entries of American shipping, viz., 177,022, 
included 99,123 tons in oversea trade, 53,073 in the 
coasting trade, and 24,826 in fishing vessels. In other 
words, the combined entries at Boston and Salem amounted 
to 35.2 per cent of the tonnage entered in the country, in 
United States vessels, (27.3 per cent of the oversea trade 
entered, 46.9 of those in the coasting trade, and 94.6 of 
fishing vessels entered). 

The following statement shows the rank of the Massa¬ 
chusetts ports, in comparison with their principal rivals: 


Ports. 

Tonnage 

Belonging in 

1790 to 

All Nations. 

United States. 

Foreign 

Countries. 

Boston and Salem. 

197,368 

177,022 

20,346 

Philadelphia. 

109,918 

56,997 

52,270 

New York. 

92,114 

48,274 

43,840 


Of course, in 1790, there were no steamships represented 
in the tonnage entered in Massachusetts. In 1890, of 
2,315 craft entered at Boston, with a total tonnage of 
1,449,870, 1,525 were sailing ships, with a tonnage 
of 302,353, or 20.9 per cent; against 790 steamers, with a 
total tonnage of 1,147,517, or 79.1 per cent. In 1790, 


















138 


Boston and Its Story. 


of the total entries of tonnage, 89.7 per cent were in 
American vessels, and 10.3 in foreign. In 1890, of 
1,449,870 tons, only 13.6 per cent were in American 
against 86.4 in foreign bottoms. The corresponding per 
cents for 1915 were 11.3 and 88.7. 

Foreign arrivals, in the year 1790, at the port of Boston 
were 455, while, in addition, the vessels employed in the 
coasting trade were said to number 1,200 sail. In the 
fiscal year 1790-91, duties collected in the ports of Massa¬ 
chusetts amounted to $420,707, about one-seventh of the 
total for the ports of the United States. The exports of 
Massachusetts in the fiscal year 1792 were valued at 
$3,389,922. Foreign entries in 1793 were 376, and 
foreign clearances 292. 

Pemberton’s “ Description of Boston,” in 1794, credits 
the town with eighty wharves and quays. Pemberton says 
(November, 1794): 

“The harbour of Boston is at this date crowded with 
vessels. Eighty-four sail have been counted lying at 
two of the wharves only. It is reckoned that not less than 
four hundred and fifty sail . . . are now in this port.” 

The most famous of American naval frigates, “The 
Constitution,” was built by Edmund Hart at his wharf 
in Boston, the site of which is covered by the present 
Constitution Wharf. The Constitution, of 1,567 tons, 
was launched October 21, 1797. She carried 52 guns. 
She served against the French in 1799, and did brilliant 
service in the War of 1812, in which she gained the name 
of “Old Ironsides.” Her e-fitted hulk is now kept as a 
memorial at the Charlestown Navy Yard, which was 
established in 1800. The sails of the Constitution 
were made in the Granary of Boston, and the sail-cloth of 


Trade of Boston, 1793 - 1815 . 


139 


which they were made was woven in a factory at the 
corner of Tremont and Boylston streets. The product 
of this factory is said to have amounted to between 
eighty and ninety thousand yards per annum, and to 
have competed successfully with the duck brought from 
abroad. 

The almost continuous warfare between Great Britain 
and France, in the period 1793-1815, wrought havoc on 
the commerce of Boston, and more especially on its trade 
with Europe. Again and again the Town Meeting 
expressed its displeasure with the measures taken by the 
Federal government to meet the selfish and contemptuous 
policy of both France and England towards the infant 
empire of the United States. Witness: (1) its denuncia¬ 
tion, in 1795, of the Jay treaty with England, and appeal 
to the President not to ratify it; (2) its appeal in 1808, 
for the repeal of the Embargo Act; and (3) its circular 
letter of June 15, 1812, to the towns of Massachusetts, 
containing a long series of spirited resolves in favor of 
impartial neutrality. These resolves were adopted less 
than a week before the declaration of war against Eng¬ 
land. In their preamble the Bostonian views of the situa¬ 
tion were tersely stated as follows: 

“The Decrees of France; the Edicts of England, and 
the Acts of Congress, though intended to counteract 
each other, constitute a triple league for the annihilation 
of American commerce, and our Govermnent, as if weary 
of waiting for a lingering dissolution, hastens to des¬ 
patch the sufferer, by the finishing stroke of a British 
War.” 

In 1807, the shipping of Boston amounted to 310,309 
tons, or more than one third of the mercantile marine 
of the United States. In 1810, the foreign and coast- 


140 


Boston and Its Story. 


wise tonnage owned in Massachusetts was 495,203, or 
more than the combined tonnage of the States of New 
York and Pennsylvania. In 1814, Boston’s exports were 
valued at only $118,285, involving a decrease of $5,733,- 
736, or 97.9 per cent, from 1811. In 1816, the year after 
peace was made, the exports of Boston showed a gain of 
$7,925,692, or 6,700.5 per cent, from 1814. In the calendar 
year 1915, the exports of Boston were valued at $119,- 
498,929 against $5,244,398 in 1815. 

During the War of 1812, there was a revival of priva¬ 
teering, and Boston participated actively in it. A 
recent writer places the value of British vessels destroyed 
by American privateers, during the war, at $9,400,000, 
or $40,000 less than the losses inflicted by the British 
on American shipping. Boston is credited with 31 
privateers, and Salem with 40, against 58 for Baltimore, 
and 55 for New York. 

The early revival of the East India trade, after the War 
of 1812, caused a demand for faster ships. Profiting by the 
speedy quality of the Baltimore clippers, the northern 
ship-yards evolved a new sort of ship, characterized as 
“cod-headed and mackerel-tailed.” In 1821, one of them, 
the “George” of Salem, astonished the world by coming 
home from Calcutta in 95 days. She went out the next 
season in 89. She was known as the “Salem Frigate,” and 
made 21 Indian voyages, none taking more than 100 days. 
Her type was superseded by the clipper ship, a Yankee 
invention, that revolutionized the carrying trade of the 
world. The “Rainbow,” of 750 tons, designed by John 
Griffiths of New York, was the pioneer of this class. She 
was launched in that city in January, 1845, sailed in 
February, and arrived home again in September follow¬ 
ing, to the confusion of the critics of her “ crazy model.” 


Boston’s Clipper Ships. 


141 


She was widest amidships, whence she tapered fore and 
aft. She had a knife-like concave prow, and a sharp, 
narrow stern. The “Sea Witch,” Griffith’s second clipper, 
on her maiden trip, in 1846-47, ran from Sandy Hook to 
Hong Kong in 104 days, and returned in 89. Later she 
established the record for that run of 77 days. In Janu¬ 
ary, 1851, she reached San Francisco from New York in 
97 days. But seven months later her achievement was 
eclipsed by the “Flying Cloud,” of 1,782 tons, which made 
the same run in 89 days, a record that still stands. The 
Flying Cloud was constructed at the East Boston yard 
of Donald McKay. In the course of two years McKay 
turned out 6 record breaking clippers. His “Lightning,” 
of 2,083 tons, in 1853, on her maiden trip to Liverpool from 
Boston, made a day’s run of 436 miles, that has never 
been surpassed by a sailing-ship. Not till 1889 did an 
ocean-going steamship do better. Another ship from the 
McKay yard, the “James Baines,” built for a Liverpool 
firm, covered the distance between Boston Light and Rock 
Light, Liverpool, in 12 days 6 hours. In 1854, the 
Baines made the run from Liverpool to Melbourne in 63 
days, and returned in 69 days. No sailing ship has ever 
done better than that in circling the globe. Naturally 
Boston clipper ships found a ready sale among shipping 
houses both in Europe and America. In 1854, a Liver¬ 
pool firm ordered 4 clipper ships of an average tonnage of 
2,409, of Donald McKay, for the Australian trade. 

At Donald McKay’s ship-yard at East Boston some 52 
ships (ranging in tonnage from 700 in 1847, to 4,555 in 
1853), aggregating 75,590 tons, were launched in the period 
1845-69. In the period 1848-57, McKay built 42 ships, 
aggregating 63,190 tons. Among them were eight of over 
2,000 tons. The activity of the four East Boston yards 


142 


Boston and Its Story. 


culminated in 1854, when 39 vessels, amounting to 52,157 
tons, were built; 7 of them, of 14,719 tons burden, were 
launched from the McKay yard. The largest of all 
clipper ships, McKay’s “ Great Republic,” was 325 feet 
long and of 4,555 tons burden. She was launched October 
4, 1853. Three months later she was burned to the 
water’s edge in New York. When rebuilt, she had 3 decks 
instead of 4, and was reduced in tonnage to 3,337 tons. 
She served as a transport in the Crimean and Civil wars. 
She made the run from New York to San Francisco in 92 
days. She was sold to a Liverpool Company in 1865. In 
1872 she had to be abandoned at sea. 

After 1856, ship building in Boston declined and has 
never regained its former eminence. Steam ships dis¬ 
placed clipper ships, and the United States, owing to its 
unreadiness to compete in the construction of iron 
steamers, lost control of the carrying trade. Since 1860, 
the foreign commerce of the United States has been forced 
to rely on foreign bottoms, mostly British. It is worthy 
of note that in 1857 an iron steamship of 1,250 tons 
burden was built for the Pasha of Egypt at one of the 
East Boston yards. 

Although many of the crack clippers built in Boston 
were acquired by British or other European owners, their 
records for speed still stand to the credit of their original 
American skippers and crews, whose seamanship was the 
despair of their rivals during the heyday of the clippers. 
Seldom did an American clipper, or a British clipper built 
on American lines, outsail an American clipper handled by 
an American crew. In a sense, the American clippers, 
with their sharp lines and enormous spread of canvas, 
were huge yachts, and in yacht racing, then as now, 
American skippers and sailors were second to none. 


Diversified Interests of Boston. 


143 


As late as 1830, the business interests of Boston were 
chiefly commercial and its manufactures were mainly 
devoted to the building and rigging of ships. In the 
decade 1830-40, the city’s interests became more diversi¬ 
fied, as did those of New England, owing to the 
introduction of steam as a motive power on land and sea 
and the rapid growth of mills and factories. By 1835, 
thanks to the enterprise of its merchants, Boston had 
railroad connection with Lowell, Providence and Worces¬ 
ter; and in 1841, when the line between Worcester and 
Albany was opened, Boston gained railroad connection 
of a sort with the West. Boston capitalists were already 
heavily interested in the development of New England 
industries. So Boston, in response to changing conditions 
and new opportunities for the investment of capital, 
became the financial center, or counting house, of the 
transportation and manufacturing, as well as of the 
commercial, activities of New England. 

In 1840, Boston ranked as the fourth city of the United 
States in respect to population. It was still the second 
port, having 241 houses with a capital of $11,676,000 
engaged in the foreign trade. The capital of its 25 banks 
amounted to $17,300,000; and its manufactures repre¬ 
sented an investment of $2,770,250. In 1840, the popu¬ 
lation of Boston was upwards of 93,000, showing an 
increase of 50,000, or 123.3 per cent, from 1820. Foreign 
arrivals, in 1840, were: 1,953 at New York, 538 at 
Philadelphia, and 1,628 at Boston, showing relative 
increases of 29.3, 29.6 and 153.6, respectively, from 1830. 
The tonnage entered at Boston from foreign ports in 1841 
was 286,315, an increase of 156,353 tons, or 120.3 per 
cent, from 1821. In 1841, foreign imports amounted to 
$18,911,958, and exports to $9,424,186. 


144 


Boston and Its Story. 


The year 1840 was signalized by the establishment of 
regular steam communication between Boston and Liver¬ 
pool, via Halifax, the British government having granted 
a heavy subsidy to the Cunard Company to carry the 
mails between Liverpool, Halifax and Boston. The first 
Cunarder, the “Unicorn,” arrived at Boston, June 2, 1840, 
and docked at a wharf which had been specially built at 
East Boston by the merchants of Boston, to be leased to 
the company at a nominal rental for twenty years. 

The choice of Boston as the terminus for the Cunarders 
was in recognition of the nearness of the port to the 
maritime British provinces, and the superiority of its 
harbor and wharf accommodations. Speaking broadly, 
the port of Boston has ranked second only to New York 
in the value of its foreign commerce most of the time 
since 1840. In the period 1890-1915, Boston ranked 
second in eighteen years, third in 4 years and fourth in 
4 years. It fell to third place in 1903, and was again 
third in 1915. In respect to value of imports, it has been 
second in every year of the period. The volume and 
importance of the trade between Boston and Great 
Britain was greatly stimulated by the establishment of 
steam communication with Liverpool in 1840. Boston’s 
trade with the United Kingdom has become the largest 
branch of its total commerce. In 1880, of Boston’s 
total foreign trade, 69.5 per cent were with Great Britain; 
the corresponding per cent in 1915 was 46.6. 

The early Cunarders were essentially mail and passenger 
boats, although they served too for jthe carriage of high- 
class freight. Several attempts were made to establish 
regular packet lines between Boston and England in the 
first quarter of the nineteenth century. In 1844, a 
notably successful effort in this direction was made by 
Enoch Train, a Boston merchant, who established a line 


Culmination of Shipbuilding at Boston. 145 

of sailing packets between Boston and Liverpool to carry 
coarse and heavy freight. It was Train who induced 
Donald McKay, of Newburyport, to remove to East 
Boston, where he began building packets for the Train line 
in 1845. In the period 1845-53, McKay built 10 ships ; 
aggregating 13,069 tons, for this line. One of McKay's 
most famous clippers, the Flying Cloud, was built in 
1851 for the Train line, although it was under the flag of a 
New York house that she became famous in the Cali¬ 
fornia trade. The Warren line of steamers is the twentieth 
century successor of the old Train line of sailing packets 
that did a large business under various names during the 
last half of the nineteenth century. 

Oversea traffic in Boston was active, varied, and on the 
whole lucrative, in the decade of 1850-60. Yet the 
decade stands out as the period in which the foreign 
commerce of the port began to wane. Its prosperity 
under the old order of things culminated in 1856-58. 
In 1855, the tonnage of shipping owned in Boston reached 
its maximum, viz., 541,644; and the total tonnage repre¬ 
sented by entries and clearances in the foreign trade was 
1,395,949, or 66,271 tons more than it was in 1865. In 
both years the proportionate tonnage was 52 and 48 per 
cent, respectively, for American and foreign bottoms. 

In 1855, when there were built in and about Boston 
44 vessels, with a tonnage amounting to 45,988, and 22 
more of 27,877 tons were on the stocks at the end of the 
year, shipbuilding reached its high-water mark. Boston 
clearances for California and Australia fell from 149 in 
1853 to 47 in 1857. In 1857, Boston was still pre-eminent 
in the Russia trade; but it had lost control of the China 
trade, and was destined soon to lose its hold on the 
Calcutta trade. 

In 1851, the merchant marine of the United States held 


146 


Boston and Its Story. 


a commanding position in the carrying trade of the world 
in respect to efficiency and extent. It did so because 
American shipyards were able to turn out larger and faster 
wooden ships at lower cost than the British shipyards 
could. As regards tonnage, the British Empire surpassed 
the United States by 16.5 per cent; but American mer¬ 
chantmen commanded higher freight rates, lower rates of 
insurance, and were more profitable to their owners. In 
the period 1850-59, 334,563 tons of American shipping 
were sold to foreigners, equal to one-tenth of the whole 
output of the yards during the period. 

After the repeal of the British Navigation Act in 1849, 
British merchants were free to buy ships anywdiere; 
but American merchants, down to 1914, were forbidden 
by our Navigation Acts to do so. Ultimately, a goodly 
portion of the clipper ships, which had contributed so 
much to American prosperity in the period 1851-56, passed 
into the possession of foreigners, and American merchants 
could neither buy nor build shipping of the new type to 
advantage. While the Civil War was waging, 1862-65, 
the registered tonnage of the United States, owing to 
sales to aliens, decreased by 774,652 tons. 

In the year ending June, 1915, under authority of the 
Ship Registry Act of August 18, 1914, American registers 
were issued to 148 vessels, of 523,361 tons, valued at 
33.4 millions of dollars. Over six-tenths of that tonnage 
were transferred from the British and barely twenty-eight 
per cent from the German flag. So, in 1914-15, the 
foreign shipping transferred to the American flag exceeded 
by only 297 tons the American shipping sold to foreigners 
in the years 1863 and 1864. 

The decline of the merchant marine of the United 
States, following the panic year 1857, reflected both 



WASHINGTON STREET, FROM WATER TO MILK STREET, I860. 

The five brick buildings to the left of the Old South Church composed the first brick 
business block erected in Boston. The first and second ones mark the site of Governor 
John Winthrop's home, in which he died. 

































Decline of American Shipping. 


147 


world-wide and local conditions. During the first half 
of the decade 1850-59, there was abnormal activity in the 
construction of wooden clipper ships, owing to the rush 
of gold seekers to California and Australia. At the same 
time the increase in the number and efficiency of iron 
steamships, mostly British, began to undermine the 
ascendency of the merchant marine of the United States. 
The steam tonnage of the United States in 1856, amounting 
to 89,715, was scarcely one-sixth of that of the British 
Empire, while the gain from 1851 was only 44 per cent for 
the United States, against 104 per cent for the British 
Empire. Sales of American tonnage to aliens in 1860 
were 74 per cent less than they had been in 1855. 

Besides the changes effected by improvements in naval 
architecture, since the middle of the last century, radical 
changes have been made in the methods of conducting 
overseas trade throughout the world since the later sixties, 
owing to the opening of the Suez Canal and the develop¬ 
ment of submarine telegraphy. Merchants have ceased to 
be merchant adventurers; middlemen and brokers have 
multiplied and supercargoes have become extinct. 

It is clear that the decline in the ascendency of the 
United States in the carrying trade was well advanced 
before it was accelerated by the Civil War. After the 
Civil War the demands upon American capital and 
enterprise for developing the resources of the interior of 
the country were so inviting and compelling that the 
nation was apparently content to leave the handling of its 
foreign trade to the owners of foreign ships. Thus, on 
the basis of value, while in 1855 the per cent of the foreign 
commerce of the United States carried in American 
vessels was 76, in 1865 it was only 28; it fell further to 13 
in 1890, and in 1915 was only 14 per cent. 


148 


Boston and Its Story. 


The following statement affords a comparison of the 
composition of the merchant marine of the world and the 
United States, in respect to construction and motive 
power, in 1915: 


Kind of Ship, 

Percentage Distribution op 
Tonnage in: 

The World. 

United States 
Registered. 

Wooden. 

3.9 

23.3 

Metal. 

96.1 

76.7 

Sailing. 

7.2 

22.6 

Steam. 

92.8 

77.4 



In the foregoing statement, barges, canal boats and gas- 
driven craft are excluded from the registered tonnage of 
the United States. Nevertheless, the larger per cents of 
wooden and sailing tonnage of the United States are 
striking. This is probably attributable to the preponder¬ 
ance of coasting trade. 

The documented merchant marine of the United States, 
which includes enrolled and licensed, as well as registered 
vessels, has greatly changed in character since 1855, as is 
shown in the following statement: 


DOCUMENTED TONNAGE — UNITED STATES. 


Year. 

Per Cent by Trade. 

Total. 

Foreign. 

Coasting. 

Whale 

Fishery. 

Cod and 
Mackerel 
Fishery. 

1915. 

8,389,429 

22.20 

77.32 

0.11 

0.37 

1865. 

5,096,782 

29.79 

66.35 

1.65 

2.21 

1855. 

5,212,001 

45.06 

48.80 

3.58 

2.56 




































Increase of Business in Boston Since 1865. 149 

The following table affords a comparative view of the 
increase in population, assessed valuation and certain 
outstanding business interests of Boston in the half 
century since the close of the Civil War. 



1915 . 

*Increase 

Per Cent of Increase. 


from 1865 . 

1865 - 1915 . 

1890 - 1915 . 

Population *. 

745,439 

553,121 

286.12 

66.22 

Valuation. 

$1,573,164 

$1,201,271 

323.02 

91.37 

Bank clearings. 

8,256.936 

5,915.047 

252.58 

60.93 

Commerce: 





Total. 

260.129 

214.160 

487.84 

94.01 

Imports. 

152.653 

128.112 

525.89 

142.78 

Exports. 

107.476 

86.047 

449.11 

50.94 

Tonnage. 

4.124 

2.794 

210.11 

66.38 

Manufactures (1914): 





Value of products.. 

284.802 

193.852 

213.14 

35.02 


* Excepting population, 000’s are omitted in the table. 


Although the value of the products of the manu¬ 
facturing establishments of Boston in 1914 (the last year 
for which the figures are available) exceeded the value 
of its commerce in 1915 by 24.7 millions of dollars it 
is noteworthy that the absolute and relative increases 
in the value of imports and exports were considerably 
greater than those in the value of manufactured products 
in the last twenty-five years as well as in the last fifty 

























150 


Boston and Its Story. 


years. Moreover, the largest per cents of increase, for 
both periods in the table, are those relating to foreign 
commerce. Manifestly, notwithstanding the enhanced 
importance of the financial and industrial interests of 
Boston since the decline of the American merchant 
marine set in, its commercial interests still warrant its 
ancient designation as a “ Trading Town.” 

In 1865 the value of Boston’s foreign trade amounted 
to 1.89 per cent of its bank clearings. The corresponding 
per cent for 1915 was 3.15. As regards the value of 
products of manufactures, it was 3.45 per cent of bank 
clearings in 1915 against 3.88 in 1865. In 1915 Boston’s 
foreign trade amounted in value to 91.34 per cent of the 
value of manufactured products, against 48.66 in 1865. 

As a manufacturing center Boston is distinguished by 
the wide range of its industries. Ranked by value of 
products (expressed in millions of dollars), the leading 
industries of Boston, in 1914, were: (1) Printing and 
publishing, newspapers and periodicals, 17.915 millions; 
(2) confectionery, 14.796; (3) boot and shoe cut stock 
and findings, 13.909; (4) men’s clothing, 13.729; (5) 
boots and shoes, 13.253; (6) printing and publishing, 
books, music, etc., 12.680; (7) foundry and machine 

shop products, 12.350; (8) bread and bakery products, 
11.413; (9) women’s clothing, 9.609; and (10) malt 

liquors, 8.836. Far down the list of minor industries 
“shipbuilding, including boats,” appears with an output 
valued at $325,300. 

Boston ranks higher in finance and commerce than in 
manufactures. Thus, in 1909, it ranked eighth among 
the manufacturing cities of the United States; third in 
bank clearings and fourth in total foreign trade, and was 
second in value of imports. At the close of the fiscal 
year 1915-16, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston ranked 
third, or next to that of Chicago, as regards resources and 
earnings. 

In 1912, just before the Federal Reserve Bank was 
established, the twenty national banks of Boston were 
credited with a “banking power” of 271.5 millions of 


Rank of Boston in Finance and Commerce. 151 

dollars, or $383.83 per capita. In this respect Boston 
was first among the financial centers of the United States. 

The banking system of Boston began in 1784, when 
the first of its incorporated banks, viz., the Massachusetts 
Bank, was established. The Provident Institution for 
Savings of Boston is the oldest incorporated savings 
bank in America. Of the twenty-three savings banks in 
Boston, in 1915, with upwards of 318.5 millions worth 
of assets, and 297.3 millions dollars due depositors, the 
Provident Institution ranked first, with 56.3 millions 
of assets, and 52.6 millions due depositors, or $504.94 
per account on the average. The Boston Clearing 
House Association was established in 1856, with a mem¬ 
bership of twenty-nine banks. 

Since the beginning of the fiscal year 1914-15 the 
imports and exports of all ports in Massachusetts have 
been so returned as to render it impossible to separate 
the figures for the old port of “Boston and Charlestown” 
from those for Massachusetts. In 1912, 99.54 per cent 
of the foreign trade of all ports in the State were credited 
to Boston. For the sake of simplicity we may still 
speak of the commerce of Boston, although the com¬ 
merce credited to Boston in the foregoing table includes 
that of a few other ports whose customs business has 
now to be handled in Boston. Boston, then, in 1915, 
ranked third among the seaports of the United States 
in total trade; second in imports and fifth in exports; 
being credited with 5.85 per cent of the foreign trade of 
the United States; 9.12 per cent of its imports, and 3.88 
per cent of its exports. Judged by the combined value 
of imports and exports, Boston, in 1915, ranked nine¬ 
teenth among the ports of the world, i. e., between 
Montreal and Shanghai. In imports, Boston’s rank was 
sixteenth, although it was forty-ninth in total tonnage. 

Among the ports of the United States Boston is pre¬ 
eminent by reason of the high ratio of imports to its 
total trade. It was 58.68 in 1915 against 37.68 for the 
whole country. The corresponding figures for other 
leading ports were 44.59 for Philadelphia, 43.82 for 


152 


Boston and Its Story. 


New York, 27.58 for New Orleans, 15.92 for Baltimore 
and 4.22 for Galveston. 

Excess of imports over exports at Boston is not a new 
phenomenon, although in the United States, as a rule, 
exports have exceeded imports in value in thirty-eight 
years of the period 1866-1915. At Boston, imports 
showed an excess in twenty-eight years and exports in 
twenty-two years — of the twenty-two, sixteen fell in 
the period 1889-1904. 

In the last fifty years the ratio of imports to total 
trade was 52.43 at Boston, as compared with 43.40 for 
the rest of the country. For the period 1890-1915, 
imports at Boston amounted to 2,422.3 millions of dollars, 
equal to 8.48 per cent of the United States; and its exports 
were 2,383.0 millions, or 6.09 per cent of the United 
States. The per cent of imports to total trade at Boston 
for the twenty-five years was 50.41. 

The statement on page 153 shows the standing of 
Boston among the seven leading ports of the country 
in 1915. Values are given in millions of dollars. 

In 1915 the port of Boston ranked fourth in respect to 
tonnage entered, eighth in tonnage cleared, and sixth in 
total tonnage, which amounted to 4.41 per cent of the 
United States. Vessels entered numbered 1,488, with a 
total tonnage of 2,463,651, as against 1,161 cleared, having 
a total tonnage of 1,659,802. Of the aggregate tonnage, 
11.29 per cent was classed as American, and 88.71 as 
foreign; 96.52 per cent were credited to steam vessels 
and 3.48 to sailing ships. 

Only 14 vessels entered in ballast, the residue, or 99.06 
per cent brought cargo; whereas 350 vessels, or 30.15 
per cent, cleared in ballast. Of the tonnage entered, 
99.14 per cent represented cargo laden vessels. This 


Boston’s Standing Among Ports of the Country. 153 

was a higher per cent by 8.47 points than that of New 
York. Boston was, therefore, first among United States 
ports in the number and tonnage of vessels bringing cargo. 
Only 69.85 per cent of the vessels cleared were not in 
ballast. No other of the seven principal ports had so 
high a per cent of vessels cleared in ballast as that of 
Boston, viz., 30.15. Galveston came next with 20.9. 


Principal Ports in 1915. 


Port. 

Total Trade. 

Imports. 

Exports. 

Value. 

Per Cent of 
United 
States. 

Value. 

Per Cent of 
United 
States. 

Value. 

Per Cent of 

United 

States. 

1. New York... . 

2,124.6 

47.82 

931.0 

55.61 

1,193.6 

43.12 

2. New Orleans.. 

289.1 

6.51 

79.7 

4.76 

209.3 

7.57 

3. Boston. 

260.1 

5.86 

152.7 

9.12 

107.5 

3.88 

4. Galveston. . .. 

240.5 

5.41 

10.1 

0.61 

230.4 

8.32 

5. Philadelphia. . 

163.6 

3.68 

72.9 

4.36 

90.7 

3.27 

6. San Francisco, 

157.6 

3.55 

76.1 

4.54. 

81.5 

2.94 

7. Baltimore. . . . 

156.9 

3.53 

24.9 

1.49 

131.9 

4.77 


Viewed from whatever angle, it would appear that the 
port of Boston is distinctively an importing center. This 
is not strange when it is remembered that the mills and 
factories of New' England obtain their raw material largely 
from abroad, and that the natural channel into New 
England for foreign supplies and commodities is through 
Boston Harbor. 




























154 


Boston and Its Story. 


As regards volume of trans-Atlantic passenger business, 
Boston is second only to New York. In the year ending 
June 30, 1914, arrivals and departures at Boston numbered 
138,096, or 5.06 per cent of the United States. Arrivals 
amounted to 96,157 (aliens, 81,341; citizens of the United 
States, 14,816), and departures were 41,939 (aliens, 
25,838; citizens of the United States, 16,101). The 
annual average number of passengers arrived from foreign 
countries at Boston, in the twelve years 1904-15, was 
71,486, of whom 51,151 were immigrants. The greatest 
number of immigrant arrivals in any year was 70,164 in 
1907. In 1914 they numbered 69,365, but only 15,983 
in 1915. Philadelphia ranks next to Boston in the num¬ 
ber of immigrants arrived, with an average of 36,640 for 
the twelve years. A goodly number of immigrants 
destined for New England enter the country at New York, 
but Boston, as a rule, is the port of entrance into the 
promised land for most new comers into New England; 
as it was in the beginning, so is it now. 

Sentimental interest attaches in large measure to the 
action of the General Court in 1635, when it was ordered 
that a beacon be set and a ward kept on Sentry Hill 
“to warn the Country of any danger.” In that action, 
coupled with the erection of batteries within the town and 
on Castle Island, and the establishment of an organized 
militia, the “anointed eye” may discern a foregleam of 
the spirit of ’76. These measures of the General Court, 
in 1635, expressed the resolve of the imperiled Colony 
to resist the avowed designs of Laud and others of the 
King’s minions in England against the chartered liberties 
of New England. 

Providentially, the danger was averted; but, broadly 
speaking, the erection of a potential torch on the summit 



VIEW OF STATE HOUSE, 1916. 
























Beacon Hill and Beacon Isle. 


155 


of Beacon Hill was a portentous event. Thereby, the 
Beacon became a landmark in both the physical and the 
historical landscape. Thenceforward, till Independency 
was achieved, the fires of liberty were kept alight. 

A century and a quarter have elapsed since the dis¬ 
appearance of the Beacon; but for more than a century 
the present State House, topping Beacon Hill, has served 
as an impressive land-mark to wayfarers approaching the 
city, either by sea or land. To the distant observer the 
gilded dome of the State House, and the still loftier tower 
of the new Custom House, serve to mark the head of the 
Boston ship channel. 

For the benefit of mariners the General Court erected, 
in 1715-16, the first lighthouse in America, on or near 
the Beacon Isle, at the mouth of the Boston ship channel. 
The lamps of Boston Light were first lit on September 14, 
1716. In 1739 the light-keeper was appointed “the pilot 
of Boston Harbor/’ and the Province established a scale 
of pilotage fees. In 1789 the United States took over 
Boston Light. At present there are eight lighthouses 
in or near Boston Harbor maintained by the Federal 
Government, whose lights are visible from 11 to 17 miles. 

The founders of Boston builded better than they knew, 
when, for the sake of securing good drinking water, they 
located their dwellings under the lee of Trimountaine on 
the shores of the coves at the head of the deep water ship 
channel, within “the Lake” formed by the islands of the 
inner harbor; and then proceeded to lay out their market 
place at a point about which the business activities of 
the Town, the Commonwealth and New England have 
centered ever since. No city planning board could have 
done better, indeed it may be doubted whether any such, 
in our own day, has done nearly so well. 


156 


Boston and Its Story. 


The history of Boston is singularly rich in elements 
of interest to the student of the evolution of political 
institutions. Whether one considers the development of 
Boston as a tract of land, or as a body corporate and 
politic, the wonder grows that one of the great cities of the 
world should have developed out of so small and simple a 
germ. The outstanding practical problem for the first 
settlers of Boston was the development of their realty 
within the neck of Shawmut. 

By the fall of 1634, when the first extant records of the 
town were set down by Winthrop, the town of Boston had 
developed the three essential elements of the town polity, 
viz., a town meeting, town orders or by-laws, and a com¬ 
mittee of ten (selectmen) charged with the management 
of the town’s affairs during the intervals between the 
general meetings of the inhabitants. 

Already considerable portions of the “plain neck” had 
been transformed into homesteads, with garden plots, 
planting fields enclosed within common fences, and tracts 
of unenclosed waste reserved for common pasture. More¬ 
over, to meet Boston’s growing needs for fuel and timber, 
arable and pasture, considerable tracts of outlying terri¬ 
tory had been granted by the General Court. A market 
place had been laid out, as had streets connecting the three 
nuclear groups of habitations with one another and with 
Roxbury on the main land. 

The administrative needs of the town had become so 
considerable and pressing that the Town Meeting, finding 
itself no longer equal to their adequate control, had begun 
to empower certain of its members to act for the Town 
and report their doings from time to time to the Town. 
So vigorous and adaptable was the simple polity of the 
town that as Boston grew in importance as the capital of 


The Town of Boston, 1821 . 


157 


the Colony, and the principal maritime town in English 
America, it was able to create new organs to subserve new 
functions. 

In the last stage of its development as a town, just 
before the charter of incorporation was secured in 1821, 
the Town of Boston,, both in its physical features and in 
its governmental machinery, presented wide and striking 
contrasts to any other town , anywhere. On the one hand, 
it differed from other towns in the number and character 
of its public and private buildings, wharves, shipyards, 
and factories; while its more complex and varied interests, 
as a subdivision of the State of Massachusetts, were 
reflected in a larger and more expert body of public 
officials as well as by a larger and more comprehensive 
body of by-laws. 

In their General Meetings the Primary Towns passed 
penal orders (by-laws) without let or hindrance. In 1636, 
the right of the Freemen “to make such orders as may 
concern the well ordering of their own towns” was ex¬ 
pressly sanctioned by an order of the General Court. 
The Bodye of Liberties, in 1641, confirmed that right. 
In 1692-93, a comprehensive act was passed relating to the 
powers and privileges of towns throughout the Province. 
It contained a provision requiring the approval, by a 
court of Quarter Sessions, of all “town orders or by-laws”; 
but the provision was repealed in 1696. Early in the 
eighteenth century the General Court must have revived 
the requirement for a town to submit its by-laws to the 
justices of a county court, inasmuch as in 1710 and there¬ 
after Boston’s by-laws were customarily submitted to the 
Quarter Sessions of Suffolk for approval and confirmation. 
While the course of the statutes relating to by-laws in the 
period 1696-1785 cannot be precisely stated, it is certain 


158 


Boston and Its Story. 


that since 1785 the towns of Massachusetts have been 
subject to superior authority in the matter of passing by¬ 
laws. As late as 1903, the statutes provided that “ Before 
a by-law takes effect, it shall be approved by the Superior 
Court,” etc. Since 1904, the by-laws of all towns have 
had to be submitted to the Attorney-General of the Com¬ 
monwealth for his approval. 

Since the adoption of the Constitution in 1780, the 
General Court has shown a marked tendency to encroach 
on the ancient autonomy of the Massachusetts towns. 
But the cities, and especially Boston, have suffered greater 
losses in respect to home rule than the towns have. 
Article II. of Amendments to the Constitution, empower¬ 
ing the General Court “to constitute municipal or city 
governments,” was adopted in 1821. It still contains the 
provision that “all by-laws made by such municipal or 
city government, shall be subject at all times to be 
annulled by the General Court.” 

In political organisms, as well as in the animal kingdom, 
increase in size, i. e., growth, necessitates what is techni¬ 
cally termed differentiation of parts and specialization of 
functions, or else retarded development will result. The 
working of this law is traceable in the formation of new 
organs to meet new needs in the political organism of 
Boston, both as a whole, and also in the evolution of specific 
parts of the organism, e. g., the town meeting, the select¬ 
men, and the school committee. Thus, the selectmen 
constituted a special executive organ, fashioned by the 
Town Meeting out of a few of its own members to order 
the prudential affairs of the town. Accordingly, in the 
earlier days, the Selectmen sometimes acted as allotters 
of land, as surveyors of highways, as assessors of rates and 
taxes, and as an inchoate school committee. They also 


The Board of Selectmen. 


159 


had power to admit new inhabitants as well as to appoint 
minor officials, such as cow keepers and fold keepers. 
When the town treasurer and recorder emerged first, in 
1640 and 1645, respectively, they were chosen by the 
Selectmen. 

The Selectmen chosen by the Town Meeting were 
usually chosen to serve for six months down to 1645; 
thereafter they were regularly chosen for one year. It 
was not unusual for the Town to choose Selectmen from 
among the most able and eminent of its citizens. Thus, 
John Winthrop, who was a selectman in 1634, served 
continuously in that capacity in the period 1639-46. 
During six of those years he was Governor or Deputy 
Governor. Richard Bellingham, another of the Colonial 
governors, was a selectman of Boston at least five times. 
Of later governors who had served as selectmen, John 
Leverett, Thomas Hutchinson, and John Hancock may 
be mentioned. John Hancock was a selectman throughout 
the period 1765-76. Indeed, when he presided over the 
Continental Congress in July, 1776, Hancock was still a 
selectman of Boston. 

It is noteworthy that the Town never chose the chair¬ 
man of the Selectmen, who were free to organize their 
board as they thought fit. It is clear from their records 
that the board frequently chose sub-committees for 
special purposes, and that the Town Clerk kept their 
records. In their latter days the chairman had a salary, 
e. g., in 1821, that officer was paid $1,200. That any 
other member of the board received a salary does not 
appear. It is remarkable how meagre is the mention of 
the Chairman of the Selectmen, either in their own 
records or those of the Town. It was voted by the Town, 
in 1684, that in all cases coming before the Selectmen, 


160 


Boston and Its Story. 


“when there is an equal vote, the president for that time” 
should have a casting vote. Casual mention of the Chair¬ 
man of the Selectmen occurs in the records of an election 
of Representatives in 1776 and occasionally elsewhere. 

Public office in the early days was considered a public 
trust. In 1647, the General Court passed an act pro¬ 
viding a penalty of 20 shillings for every refusal to serve 
a town as constable, selectman, or highway surveyor. 
The Boston records abound in instances in which men 
chosen constable paid fines or were excused. In Boston, 
as provided by statute, the fine for declining a con- 
stableship was £10. In other towns, the corresponding 
fine was £5. 

As early as 1637, the Town voted to bear the charges 
for the meetings of the Selectmen. Accordingly, we find 
the board ordering the constable to pay £2 18s., in Novem¬ 
ber, 1641, “for diet for the Townsmen.” The first 
occurrence of the term “Selectmen” was on March 28, 
1642, approving the payment of “18s. for Dyet, beere, 
and fire for the Selectmen,” among whose names one 
finds those of the then Governor and Treasurer of the 
Colony. 

Boston’s system of salaries and pay rolls had very 
humble beginnings. Thus, in 1635, the Town voted that 
the keeper of the dry cattle should be paid 5 shillings a 
head for his services. In 1642, the Selectmen ordered: 
(1) that the Constable pay “5 bushells of Indian Corne” 
to one of the field keepers for the last year; and (2) that 
the keepers of the milch herd, on The Common, this 
summer, should “have a bushell of Indian Corne for each 
cowe,” and one-half the forfeitures for unyoked swine 
found at large. Four years later, all clerks of the market, 
by an order of the General Court, were allowed one- 


The Pay of Town Officers. 


161 


third of all forfeitures collected by them, the other two- 
thirds to go to the poor. 

In 1700, the Town instructed the Selectmen to have a 
piece of plate, worth £20, made as a testimonial for 
James Taylor, who had served as Town Treasurer for 
8 years and never charged more than £5 per annum, and 
to pay him £10 for the previous year. A year later, the 
Treasurer’s salary was fixed at £15. In 1712, the salary 
of the Treasurer, who was also Town Clerk, was still £15. 
In the same year, 2 Collectors of Taxes were allowed 3 d. 
in the £ for collecting the rates. In 1770, the Treasurer 
was allowed £100 for salary and office expenses; and the 
compensation of 4 collectors was fixed at from 4d to 
12 d. in the £, according to the promptness of their 
collections. In 1780, owing to the inflation of the 
currency, the Treasurer was allowed £220 for salary and 
expenses. 

In 1812, the offices of Treasurer and Collector of Taxes 
were united in one man, whose salary was $1,500; he was 
also allowed $1,500 wherewith to pay 3 deputies and a 
clerk. The deputies had certain perquisites too, includ¬ 
ing “Poundage of 4 per cent” on collections. In 1813, 
the sum of $2,500 was voted the Treasurer and Collector 
for his own salary and the pay of such deputies and clerks 
as the Committee of Finance should find to be necessary. 
At this time there were 3 Assessors at an annual salary of 
$816, when the Town Clerk’s salary was $1,000. 

In 1821 salaries ranged as follows: 


Chairman of Selectmen. $1,200 

Principal Assessors (3). 1,000 

Assistant Assessors (24). 100 

Treasurer. 2,500 

Town Clerk. 1,000 

Judge of Municipal Court. 750 


Police Officer.. $900 

Clerk of the Market. 800 

Secretary to Firewards. 200 

Messenger to Firewards. 300 

Messenger to Selectmen. 365 













162 


Boston and Its Story. 


The range of salaries of heads of certain principal 
departments in 1915 is shown in the following statement: 


Mayor.$10,000 

Superintendent of Schools. 10,000 

Corporation Counsel. 9,000 

Public Works Commissioner... 9,000 

Chairman, Health Department, 7,500 

City Auditor. 6,000 

Librarian, Public Library. 6,000 

Police Commissioner. 6,000 

Chief Justice, Municipal Court, 5,500 

City Treasurer. 5,000 


City Clerk. $5,000 

City Collector. 5,000 

Chairman, Park and Recrea¬ 
tion Department. 5,000 

Fire Commissioner. 5,000 

Chairman of Assessors. 4,500 

Chairman, Street Commis¬ 
sioners. 4,500 

Superintendent of Market. 3,000 


Of the various boards derived directly from the Select¬ 
men of early days, the School Committee is the only one 
that has been continuously chosen by the people from its 
origin till the present time. Therefore it is unique among 
the departments of Boston. 

Originally, the “Inhabitants of Boston” in Town 
Meeting elected teachers, fixed their salaries, voted supplies 
and decided on the erection and location of school houses. 
Then it became customary to commit such matters to 
the Selectmen. Early in the eighteenth century there 
began a series of tentative steps towards the evolution 
of the School Committee. Thus, in 1709, the Town 
chose a special committee to consider the affairs of the 
Free Grammar School (Latin School). The Committee 
reported that the master’s salary should be advanced to 
£100, and that he ought to have the assistance of an 
usher, in which recommendations they said they had 
the “Concurrent Opinion and Advice of ye Revrd. Min¬ 
isters.” Furthermore, the Committee recommended that 
the Town appoint “inspectors of the School” to consist 
of “a Certain Number of Gentlemen, of Liberal Educa¬ 
tion, Together with Some of ye Revd. Ministers.” Accord- 
















Beginnings of the School Committee. 163 

ingly, five men, all laymen , were appointed to serve as 
u Inspectors of the Grammar School,” for one year. 

Apparently, the inspectors were not continued in 1712; 
for in that year the Town chose a committee to inspect 
the Free Writing Schools and report on the advisability 
of establishing a writing school at the North End. In 
1714, the Committee recommended, and it was voted, 
“That it be left with the Selectmen to purchase a piece 
of Land Sutable to Sett a School House on there.” At. 
the March meeting, in 1718, the Town voted “That the 
Revd. Ministers, together with the Selectmen, are desired 
to be the Inspectors of the Grammar Schools for the year 
ensuing.” Somewhat later, it was usual for the Town 
Meeting annually to desire the Selectmen to invite the 
ministers and other notables to aid them in inspecting 
the public schools and in reporting to the Town on their 
condition. In the period 1758-88, the records abound 
in reports of such committees, who usually lubricated 
their business by a dinner at the Town’s expense. The 
visitation usually occurred in the first week of July, and 
probably marked the close of the school year. 

In 1770, the Committee of Visitation included (besides 
the Selectmen, the Representatives of the Town, and the 
Overseers of the Poor) no less than 42 prominent gentle¬ 
men, including James Otis, Esq., Mr. John Adams, 
Commodore Hood, and 5 clergymen. The Committee 
found 909 scholars in 5 schools, viz., 202 in the North 
and South Grammar Schools, and 707 in 3 writing 
schools, “all in very good order.” On July 6, 1774, “the 
Selectmen proceeded, with the Gentlemen invited, to a 
visitation of the publick Schools; but upon account of 
the present distress, the Dinner usual on such days was 


164 


Boston and Its Story. 


laid aside.” In the year ending March, 1787, £45 14s. 
were expended on the visitation of the schools. 

On September 23, 1789, the Town adopted a “New 
System of Education,” and on October 20, following, 
chose 12 men in addition to the 9 Selectmen to carry 
the system into operation. Since that date Boston has 
always had an elective School Committee. In 1812, 
the town appropriated $200 towards the maintenance of a 
school for African children, under the School Committee. 

In 1818, when the Town voted to provide schools for 
children between 4 and 7 years of age, a new committee 
was instituted. It was known, till its abolition in 1854, 
as the Primary School Committee. It originally consisted 
of 36 members, 3 from each ward. It was chosen annually 
by the General School Committee. The year before it 
was abolished and the Primary Schools turned over to the 
General School Committee, the Primary School Com¬ 
mittee numbered 196 members. 

From 1822 till 1834 school affairs were managed by 
the Mayor and Board of Aldermen, together with the 
School Committee, consisting of 12 members chosen 
annually, or one from each ward. The Aldermen were 
eliminated by act of Legislature in 1835, but the Mayor 
was ex-officio President of the board till 1885. The 
new charter of 1854 provided for a School Committee 
consisting of the Mayor, the President of the Common 
Council and 6 members from each ward. 

By 1874, owing to increase in the number of wards 
by annexation, the School Committee had increased to 
116 in number. The board was reduced to 25, including 
the Mayor, in 1876; and again in 1906 to 5 members. 
Now, as ever since 1854, the regular term of members of 
the School Committee is three years. The board has 
elected its Chairman since 1885. 


Public Schools in 1821 and 1915. 


165 


Since 1875: (1) members of the School Committee 
have been elected at large, instead of by wards; (2) 
the administrative functions of the board have been 
much reduced and simplified; and (3) the duties and 
responsibility of the Superintendent of Schools, as well 
as of his expert assistants, have been greatly augmented 
— both in kind and degree. Women have been eligible 
to membership in the School Committee since 1875. 
Since 1901 the construction, furnishing and maintenance 
of school buildings have been in charge of the School 
House Commissioners, three in number, who are appointed 
for the term of three years by the Mayor, from time to 
time. Since 1900 the School Department has been priv¬ 
ileged above any other in Boston, in that, by statute, 
a fixed portion of the tax rate has been set aside for the 
public schools. That portion increased from $2.71 per 
$1,000 of valuation in 1900 to $4.07 in 1915. In 1915, 
19 per cent of the expenditures from taxes and general 
income were for the public schools. 

The following tabular statements may serve to indi¬ 
cate the expansion of the School Department since Boston 
became a city: 


Number of Schools, Teachers and Pupils. 



1820-21. 

1914-15. 

Schools. 

Teachers. 

* 

Pupils. 

Schools. 

Teachers. 

Pupils. 

Latin and High. 

1 

6 

207 

16 

542 

17,373 

Elementary. 

29 1 

38 

3,827 

*208 

* 2,339 

* 102,270 

Totals. 

30 

44 

4,034 

224 

2,881 

119,643 


* Includes Kindergartens: 24,218 pupils; about900 teachers in night and special 
schools are excluded. 






























166 


Boston and Its Story. 


School Expenditures. 



1820 - 21 . 

1914 - 15 , 

Maintenance. 

$36,932 

8,113 

$6,065,656 

1,071,802 

New buildings. 

Totals. 

$45,045 

$7,137,458 



Scale of Salaries of Teachers. 


1820 - 21 . 


1914 - 15 . 

Latin and High: 

Masters. 

$2,000 

1,000 

600 

Head Masters. 

$3,780 to $4,068 

2,484 to 3,204 

1,478 to 2,916 

2,820 to 3,420 

600 to 1,224 

Sub-masters. 

Masters. 

Ushers. 

Junior Masters . 

Elementary: 

Masters. 

600 

Masters. 

Teachers. 

240 

Assistants. 




A Superintendent of Schools was first chosen about 
1857. The Superintendent of Schools now receives 
$10,000 per annum. 

Boston as a political entity started on apparently even 
terms with its contemporaries in 1630. Like them, it 
was a self-organized group of home seekers bent on 
making a living for man and beast by utilizing its com¬ 
munal lands for homesteads, planting fields and pastures, 
after the manner initiated by Charlestown the year 
before. Its organization was simple and thoroughly 
democratic. Its local affairs were discussed and ordered 





































Boston in the Colonial Period. 


167 


by its primary assembly (town meeting), composed of 
householders and allottees, each of whom had an equal 
voice in the conduct of affairs and the choice of officers, 
e. g., herdsmen, cow-keepers, overseers of fields and fences 
and men chosen for the town’s occasions (selectmen). 
But there were two circumstances that made for the 
advantage of Boston as compared with other towns, and 
enabled it to distance them in numbers, wealth and 
influence. They were these: (1) The Governor and 
several of the principal Assistants lived in Boston and 
held their courts (assemblies) there; and (2) its unrivaled 
situation at the head of the Bay, close to the deep water 
channel, and at the gateway to the interior. Possessed 
of such advantages at the outset, it was inevitable that 
Boston should attain leadership in the political and eco¬ 
nomic development of the Commonwealth prior to the 
Restoration in 1660. Of no other town could Johnson 
have said in 1650, as he did of Boston, that “in thrice 
seven years” it is “become like to a small City. . . . 
whose continuall inlargement presages some sumptuous 
City.” 

Comparison of the records of Boston and her sister 
towns during the Colonial period discloses a fuller and 
richer civic life that was reflected in the deliberations 
of the Boston Town Meeting, and in its instructions 
to its Deputies in the General Court, as well as in the 
increase in the kind and number of officers, chosen by 
the Town or appointed by the Selectmen, to give effect 
to the Town by-laws and the orders of the General 
Court. 

As bearing on the point last mentioned, the results of 
the Town elections in 1637 and 1681 (the year in which 
Boston was first accorded three Deputies instead of two) 


168 


Boston and Its Story. 


are significant. At the March meeting in 1637, eleven 
men were “ Chosen for these next six monethes to over¬ 
see and sett order for the townes occasions as formerly 
hath beene.” The “chosen men” shortly afterwards 
appointed four “surveyors for highwayes”; seven men 
“to look unto field fences and gates 7 ’ in the four plant¬ 
ing fields, and a “fold keeper” to take charge of tres¬ 
passing beasts. At a later meeting in 1637, the Town 
chose a constable for a year’s term. 

In March, 1681, the Town elected: a Moderator; 7 
Selectmen; 10 Constables, 8 for Boston and 1 each for 
Muddy River and Rumny Marsh; 5 Clerks of the Market; 
7 Surveyors of Highways; i e., 4 for Boston, 2 for Muddy 
River, and 1 for Rumny Marsh; 3 Sealers of Leather; 
2 Water Bailiffs; 2 Packers of Flesh and Fish; 1 Meas¬ 
urer of Salt; 3 Scavengers; 3 Criers; and 8 Hog Reeves. 
On the same day, the Selectmen chose a Recorder (Town 
Clerk) and a Treasurer; besides minor officers to the 
number of 30, e. g., Sealer of Weights and Measures, 
Cullers of Pipe Staves, Corders of Wood, Overseers of 
Wood Corders, Measurers of Corn, and Measurers of 
Boards. 

The Town was already divided into 8 companies, i. e., 
districts each supplying 100 soldiers. These were fore¬ 
runners of the eight wards established first in 1712. 
Late in April, 1681, the Selectmen appointed 3 “tythinge 
men” for each of the 8 companies, and 4 others, i. e., 2 
each for Muddy River and Rumny Marsh. In 1681, the 
public buildings of Boston included the Town House in 
the market place, the Almshouse originally built in the 
Common in 1660, and several school houses. 

Doyle, in his “English Colonies in America,” empha¬ 
sizes the fact that “The Town meeting of Boston became 


Town Officers in the Provincial Period. 169 

a power in the political life of the whole colony,” and 
suggests that the meeting “reached maturity” in 1728, 
when the Town voted unanimously against settling a 
salary upon the Royal Governor, and instructed the 
Representatives for Boston to oppose any action looking 
to that end. Governor Burnet was highly incensed 
against Boston, and sought to punish her by removing 
the General Court to Salem, besides reporting the matter 
in vituperative terms to the Lords of Trade in England. 
Thenceforward, Boston was generally a thorn in the 
side of the King’s representative in Massachusetts. 

The results of the Town election, in March, 1728, 
bear witness to certain advances in the development of 
the government of Boston since 1681. Thus, in 1728, in 
addition to officers chosen in 1681, 7 Assessors and 7 
Overseers of the Poor were chosen in the Town Meeting. 
Overseers of the Poor were first chosen in 1691, and 
Assessors in 1694. Collectors of Taxes were chosen in 
1733 and thereafter; but in 1728, taxes were still col¬ 
lected, as in the early days, by the constables, although 
in the period 1712-14, collectors had been chosen as 
such. 

In 1728, the Town voted to erect a Granary in The 
Common, where the Bridewell, for insane and disorderly 
persons, had been placed already. The Keayne Town 
House, built of wood in 1657-58, had been replaced by a 
brick structure in 1711, in which the offices of the Town, 
County and Province were located. Not till 1733 was 
the public market of the middle of the town removed to 
Dock Square, in whose neighborhood it still remains. 
In 1738, a Workhouse was added to the public institu¬ 
tions in The Common. 

Town elections, for the first half of the eighteenth 


170 


Boston and Its Story. 


century as in the seventeenth century, were generally 
held early in March, which was the first month according 
to the prevalent calendar. Even now, the “March 
meeting,” signalized by annual reports and the election 
of officers for the ensuing year, is the principal town 
meeting of the year throughout Massachusetts. March 
originally marked the beginning of the calendar as well as 
the official year. Even after England adopted the Gre¬ 
gorian or new style calendar, in 1752 (since when the 
numbered months, September-December, inclusive, have 
belied their names)—the March meeting in Boston was 
chiefly devoted to the election of town officers. It should 
be remembered that separation of municipal ajid state 
elections, which has long obtained in Massachusetts, 
appears to have been originally instituted, at least as 
regards Boston, in 1659, when it was voted by the Town 
Meeting that “the Selectmen shall for the future appoint 
the times of the meeting for the Freemen, distinct from 
the general townes meetings.” The election of Deputies, 
Representatives, and after 1780 of state officers, was 
generally presided over by the Selectmen; and at least 
in the Provincial period, and thereafter, the number of 
votes cast were recorded in the minutes. But the numeri¬ 
cal results in the election of town officers were very seldom 
recorded. 

The fiscal year in Boston, during most of its existence 
as a town, coincided with the official year; but in 1723- 
1821, the annual elections at the March meeting took so 
much time that “the consideration of money matters” 
was usually, by formal vote, continued or deferred till the 
May meeting. Accordingly, the fiscal year in Boston 
began on May 1. So it was till 1892, when February 1 was 
made the beginning of the fiscal year. In very many of the 


The Last Town Election, 1821 . 


171 


towns of Massachusetts the fiscal year still begins or 
closes in March, i. e., in the first month (old style). 

After the Revolution the town government of Boston 
became still more highly organized. For instance, the 
School Committee was instituted in 1789, and the Board 
of Health in 1799. During the last twenty-five years of 
its existence as a town, the government of Boston bore 
little resemblance to that of its compeers by reason of the 
variety of semi-independent boards having jurisdiction 
in its local affairs. But, notwithstanding the growing 
dissatisfaction with the unwieldy and archaic nature of 
the governmental machinery, the people of Boston clung to 
their town polity and defeated no less than four schemes 
to make Boston a city in name, as well as in fact, in the 
period 178T-1815. 

Finally, in 1821, the people of Boston reluctantly 
decided to petition the General Court for an act of incor¬ 
poration. The precipitating cause for this decision is 
found in the unsatisfactory relations of the Town to the 
County of Suffolk, in which Boston was the predominant 
partner. The County consisted of the towns of Boston 
and Chelsea. But the County taxes, of which Boston 
paid fully 99 per cent, were levied and spent by the Court 
of Sessions, whose justices, being appointees of the Gover¬ 
nor, were wholly outside the control of the Town Meeting 
of Boston. 

The last election of town officers of Boston was held 
March 12, 1821, at which 2,443 votes were cast for Select¬ 
men, in contrast with: (1) 4,399 cast for Governor on 
April 2, 1821, at the election of State officers; and (2) 
2,659 — the maximal vote on the fourteen articles of 
amendment to the Constitution of Massachusetts, which 
were submitted to the voters of Boston on April 9, 1821. 


172 


Boston and Its Story. 


It may be added that the vote on the adoption of the 
City Charter, on March 1, 1822, totalled 4,672. 

The last town election resulted in the choice of officers 
as follows: 7 Selectmen, chosen also to serve as Surveyors 
of Highways; a Town Clerk; a School Committee of 
twelve; 12 Overseers of the Poor, and of the Workhouse; 
30 Firewards; 20 Surveyors of Boards and other Lumber; 
6 Fence-Viewers; 6 Cullers of Hoops and Staves; 9 
Cullers of Dry Fish; 4 Hogreeves, Haywards and Field 
Drivers; 3 Inspectors of Lime; 2 Surveyors of Hemp; 2 
Surveyors of Wheat; and 2 Assay Masters. The number 
of Firewards had trebled since 1711, when they were 
first instituted. 

Besides the officers chosen in the Town Meeting, there 
were: (1) the members of the Board of Health, one in and 
for each of the twelve wards; (2) 24 Assistant Assessors, 
2 in each ward. All of them were chosen in annual ward 
meetings presided over by Wardens — who were elective 
officers. The Principal Assessors in addition were chosen 
in convention by the twenty-four Assistant Assessors. 
The Town Treasurer was annually chosen by a convention 
made up of the Selectmen, Overseers of the Poor and 
Board of Health, who together formed the standing Com¬ 
mittee of Finance which controlled, in large measure, the 
fiscal policy and affairs of the Town. Usually the con¬ 
vention chose the Treasurer to be Collector of Taxes, too. 

There was a County Treasurer (annually elected by the 
voters of Suffolk County). He was responsible to the 
Court of Sessions, whose justices, in addition to their 
judicial functions, levied the County taxes, controlled 
the expenditure of the County income, and managed the 
County institutions. 

Some ardent advocates of commission government have 



OLD SOUTH CHURCH, CORNER WASHINGTON AND MILK STREETS 


















Boston in 1821 . 


173 


declared that the Town of Boston, during its later years, 
when it had upwards of 40,000 inhabitants, was governed 
efficiently by the Board of Selectmen, after the manner 
of a modern commission. But the records disclose a 
cumbrous system of administration by semi-independent 
boards, and a composite budget, representing the demands 
of the State, the Court of Sessions, the Selectmen, the 
School Committee, the Overseers of the Poor, and the 
Board of Health. The civic life of Boston had become 
so intricate and complex that the simple organs of govern¬ 
ment that had so well served their purpose during the 
Colonial and Provincial periods, no longer sufficed. 
Even the man in the street could perceive that. 

So Boston, 191 years after its foundation, although it 
had developed into the most populous and illustrious 
town in the world, by vote of the Town Meeting on October 
22, 1821, instructed a committee to “ report to the town, 
at a future Meeting, a complete system relating to the 
administration of the Town and County which shall 
remedy the present evils.” The report of the committee 
was rendered on December 10, when the committee was 
enlarged and instructed “to report a system of Municipal 
Government for this town, with such powers, privileges 
and immunities, as are contemplated by the amendment 
of the Constitution, authorizing the General Court to 
constitute City governments.” The scheme proposed 
was accepted by the Town on January 7, 1822. The 
charter petitioned for by the Town, in accordance with this 
vote, was embodied in “An Act to Establish the City of 
Boston,” which act, known as the First Charter, was 
accepted by the Town on March 4, 1822, by a vote of 
2,797 yeas to 1,881 nays. Thereby Boston became the 
first city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and 


174 


Boston and Its Story. 


the largest city in New England. Until 1835, when 
Salem was incorporated, Boston was the only city in 
Massachusetts. 

According to the last Massachusetts census, the popu¬ 
lation of Boston, on April 1, 1915, amounted to 745,439, 
or 20.18 per cent of the total population of the State. 
On the same date there were 34 other municipalities in 
Massachusetts incorporated as cities, with an aggregate 
population of 1,818,195, or 49.23 per cent of the population 
of the State. It may be noted, however, that in 1915 
there were also 19 towns of 12,000 inhabitants or over 
that were eligible under the Constitution to apply to the 
Legislature for a city charter. The existence of so large 
a number of towns of city-size shows how strong a pre¬ 
dilection remains in Massachusetts for the form of town 
government. In 1915, the population of Brookline, the 
most populous and richest town in the State, was 33,490, 
or 12,736 less than the estimated population of Boston 
when it was incorporated in 1822. 

The management of the fiscal affairs of Boston was ex¬ 
tremely simple during the Colonial Period from 1630-92. 
For many years, rates were levied from time to time, as 
occasion arose, to defray current expenses or to pay rates 
levied upon the Town by the General Court. 

The following instances are typical. The first entry of 
a fiscal nature, in the extant records of Boston, is dated 
October 6, 1634, when the Town deputed five men 
together with the constable “to make a rate for the 
levying of £40 assessed upon the towne by order of the 
last General Court.” December 28, 1640, “the rate made 
by the townesmen, i. e., the Selectmen, amounting to 
£179, the 13th of the 10th month, 1640, for the discharge 
of the country levy, was delivered to Mr. Henry Webb, 



HOME OF DANIEL WEBSTER, SUMMER STREET, AT JUNCTION WITH .HIGH STREET. 













Early Rates and Taxes in Boston. 


175 


Constable of Boston.” Again we find, in the records of 
the Selectmen: “19; 9; 64. This day A rate for Country 
(Colony) and Town occasions to the value of £620; 19s.; 
6 d. was delivered to the Constables to be levied according 
to law.” 

An embryonic form of appropriation order emerges in 
1698, as appears from the following extract from the 
records of that year: “July 11th. At a public town meet¬ 
ing of the inhabitants of Boston, . . . voted and 

agreed that a rate of £800 should be raised by the Select¬ 
men upon the inhabitants of said town for the relief of 
the poor and other necessary charges of said town.” At 
the March meeting in 1728, the terms of the appropriation 
are much more explicit. It was then: “Voted A Grant of 
£4,700 To be Raised on the Inhabitants and Estates 
within this Town, for Relief of the Poor, Defraying the 
charges of the watch, paving and Other Necessary charges 
arising within and for the Town, the Year Ensuing.” 
In 1735 a similar grant of £7,800 was voted “to be raised 
by a Tax on Polls and Estates,” etc. 

Usually the rates were assessed by the Selectmen as 
has been stated, but a commissioner was sometimes 
chosen by the Town to join with the Selectmen “to make 
the Country rate,” e. g., in 1651 and 1660. Later the 
function of such Commissioner was to join with the 
Selectmen “to take a valuation of the estates and number 
of heads of the inhabitants,” to serve as a basis for 
assessing the Country Tax. Such valuations were made 
as early as 1685 and frequently thereafter. In 1694, 
Assessors were first chosen instead of the former commis¬ 
sioner. Seven Assessors were chosen by the Town in 
1694; 1696-1707 the number changed from five to nine. 
In 1700 the Town voted “to have no other Assessors but 


176 


Boston and Its Story. 


the Selectmen/’ and similar votes were passed in some 
years of the period 1702-10. Beginning with 1711, Asses¬ 
sors appear to have been chosen annually in Town meeting. 

In 1712 the Town voted to choose two collectors of 
rates, and allow them three pence in the pound as fees. 
In 1713 and 1714 the Selectmen were authorized to 
appoint two collectors; but in 1715 and thereafter till 
1733, the collection of taxes was performed by the con¬ 
stables. From 1733 onward the collectors of taxes appear 
to have been chosen annually by the Town as a matter 
of course. 

The Town had no treasurer till April, 1641, when the 
Selectmen chose “a Treasurer for the town stock which 
shall arise from sale of lands, or by any other ways than 
by ordinary rates, to Continue until another be Chosen 
in his place.” July 26, 1641, the Selectmen chose John 
Oliver; “ Treasurer for the Town and to keep the Town 
book.” Thenceforward until 1691 the Town Treasurer 
seems to have been appointed by the Selectmen as the 
records contain frequent mention of such appointments. 
However, he was chosen in Town Meeting in 1685, 1686 
and 1687. It would appear that after 1691 the Treasurer 
was usually chosen annually by the Town. In the period 
1802-13* inclusive, the person chosen Treasurer by the 
Town was also chosen Collector of Taxes. From 1814 
to 1821, inclusive, the election of the Treasurer and 
Collector of Taxes was in the hands of the Committee of 
Finance, first constituted in 1812. It consisted of the 
Selectmen, the Overseers of the Poor and the Board of 
Health. In each of the years indicated the Treasurer 
was elected to serve as Collector also. 

In 1641 two committees to consider accounts were 
appointed by “the men chosen to order the Towns occa- 


Auditing Committee 1641 - 92 . 


177 


sions.” The first, a committee of three, were charged 
“to take up the accounts of Mr. John Cogan,” who 
had served as constable in 1640. In August, 1641, two 
were appointed to “Rectify the Accounts concerning 
Charge of Fencing in the mill field.” These entries of 
1641 appear to be the first instances recorded of the 
appointment of an auditing committee. 

At the Town Meeting held March 9, 1685, on motion 
of the Selectmen, a committee of three was chosen “to 
examine the Accounts (of the Selectmen) of all rates 
made by them and how disbursed.” On April 13, 1685, 
the committee reported on the accounts of the Treasurer 
from April, 1679, to July 1, 1684. 

June 24, 1689, the Town voted that a committee of 
three “Audit the Selectmen’s Accounts of the years 
past.” March 14, 1692, the committee presented a report 
to the Town, covering the accounts of the Selectmen for the 
three years, 1688-90. 

In 1709 the Town chose a committee “to Audit the 
Accounts of the Committee for Fortifications in the year 
1706. And the Accounts of the Committee Appointed 
in this present year 1709 for repairing the Platforms, etc., 
at the South Battery, and also the Treasurer’s Accounts 
for this present year.” Beginning with 1713, the annual 
election of an Auditing Committee, by the Town, appears 
to have been the rule. 

The reports of the Auditing Committee down to 1776, 
as set forth in the records, consisted of a brief statement 
as to the total receipts and expenditures of the year, and 
the amount and nature of the balance at the end of the 
year. Occasionally a special committee was appointed 
on the state of the treasury, or on the accounts of the 
collectors of taxes who were often in arrears. 


178 


Boston and Its Story. 


The records for 1769 contain an elaborate report by a 
Special Committee appointed “To examine the Town 
Treasurer’s Account . . . and to make a full enquiry into 
the state of the Town Treasury and Debts and Credits 
of the Town, as also to report the same with what sum 
or sums of Money may be necessary to be raised for the 
ensuing year as a Town Tax.” The Town voted to raise 
£8,000 by tax, the sum recommended by the Committee, 
to defray the Town’s charges for the ensuing year. This 
was an innovation. In addition the Town chose five 
persons to be a “Standing Committee to inspect the state 
of the Town Treasury from time to time to Report upon 
that and other Money Matters.” Although the committee 
made another report in 1769 it seems not to have been 
continued; but its appointment foreshadowed the estab¬ 
lishment of a committee on estimates. In 1770 the 
Auditing Committee was given enlarged powers, being by 
vote of the Town “desired to Report from time to time a 
state of the Treasury respecting the Debts and Credits, 
and on any matters they may think proper.” 

The report of the Auditing Committee presented 
November 27, 1776, was unusually full and explicit. 
The report showed a balance against the Town of 
£8,181-13-11, of which £7,008 were for notes and interest 
unpaid. The committee concludes “When the sums 
already voted are borrowed and Provisions made for the 
present year the Town will be in Debt the amazing Sum 
of £15,681-13-11, which there appears to be no Fund 
to discharge.” 

In the year 1779-80 Boston’s burdens assumed por¬ 
tentous proportions owing to the demands made upon 
her for contributions in men and supplies for carrying on 
the war and to the enormous inflation of the currency. 


Tax Burden in 1780 . 


179 


In 1780 the taxes voted by the Town, mostly for loans, 
amounted to £1,500,000 in currency, or say £37,500 in 
specie. Several special committees in addition to the 
usual auditing committee were appointed in 1781. One 
was a committee to give in an estimate of the sum neces¬ 
sary for defraying the expenses of the current year, and 
to determine upon appropriations of the same. The 
committee recommended a tax of £9,000 in gold and 
silver, etc., to be appropriated as follows: One-third to 
discharge the drafts of the Overseers of the Poor; one- 
third to discharge unpaid drafts for 1779 and 1780 of the 
Overseers and Selectmen; and the residue, with any 
remainder from the other appropriations, towards dis¬ 
charging the interest and part of the principal of the 
debts of the Town. The committee recommended that 
“the Treasurer immediately open a New set of Books to 
be kept in specie.” The Auditing Committee in 1782 
estimated the amount of the Town’s debt at £20,425 
in specie. 

The Committee on Estimates was continued in each of 
the years 1783-89. In 1790 the Town directed the 
Auditing Committee to also “report the sum Necessary 
to be raised for the Services of the Present Year.” Simi¬ 
lar votes were annually passed in the period 1791-1812. 
In 1812, by a vote of the Town, “the Selectmen, Over¬ 
seers of the Poor, and Members of the Board of Health 
were constituted a Committee of Finance, to superintend 
the administration of the monied concerns of the Town.” 
By an Act of 1813, the Committee of Finance of Boston 
was directed to annually appoint in June or July a 
Treasurer and a Collector or Collectors of Taxes. Accord¬ 
ingly the fiscal affairs of Boston, from 1813 till 1822, 
when the Town was incorporated a city, were largely 


180 


Boston and Its Story. 


managed by the Committee of Finance, which issued 
annual reports in print; and the members of the three 
boards, constituting the Committee of Finance, in annual 
convention, elected a Town Treasurer and a Collector of 
Taxes. During that period, 1813-21, the person elected 
Treasurer was also elected Collector of Taxes. 

The Committee of Finance issued twelve annual reports, 
viz., nine in the period 1813-21 and three in the years 
1822-24. The office of Auditor of Accounts was estab¬ 
lished by an ordinance passed August 2, 1824. The 
first report of the Auditor of the City of Boston appeared 
in 1825. The Auditor has published a report in every 
year since 1825. 

As a rule down to 1795, when it was determined to 
sell the sites of the Almshouse, etc., in The Common and 
apply the proceeds towards the purchase of land on Lev- 
erett street and the erection of a new Almshouse, etc., 
public buildings were placed on land belongipg to the 
Town. As a rule, too, public buildings, aside from 
schoolhouses, were either given to the Town, or their 
cost was largely, if not mainly, met by contributions 
from public-spirited citizens. When such contributions 
were insufficient they were eked out by levying special 
rates upon the taxpayers, or by establishing a lottery, 
e. g., for the rebuilding Faneuil Hall in 1762. 

For 150 years after its settlement Boston’s landed 
possessions were so considerable and available as to 
render the establishment of a funded debt unnecessary. 
Although the Town frequently found it difficult to meet 
its current obligations, it was not till 1812 that the ques¬ 
tion of debt requirements became an urgent one. When 
the Town became a city in 1822 Boston’s funded debt 
amounted to only $100,000, all incurred for county 
buildings, then erecting. 


City Debt in 1822 . 


181 


By far the greater part of the sums which Boston has 
borrowed at interest, since its settlement in 1630, has been 
expended on internal improvements, viz., the widening 
and extension of old streets, the construction of new 
streets, the building of sewers, the filling in of coves and 
marshes, and the laying out of parks. Naturally the 
largest and most expensive undertakings for the objects 
mentioned, as well as for bridges and water works, have 
been effected since Boston became a city in 1822. Since 
the incorporation of the City of Boston in that year, 
Boston proper has been transformed in respect to its 
sky line, its ground plan and its system of subterranean 
conveniences. 

The funded debt of Boston was only $100,000 in 
1822, when Boston became responsible for all the debts 
and expenses of the County of Suffolk, as it had been for 
fully nine-tenths of them, during the period 1803-21 
when Boston and Chelsea made up the county. 

The city debt in 1822 was in effect a county debt, as it 
had all been incurred for county buildings. The infer¬ 
ence that the Town of Boston had no experience in 
incurring and providing for debt, because the city 
inherited no debt incurred for Town purposes would 
be unwarranted. The Town of Boston in the period 
1630-1821 was frequently in straits to meet its own run¬ 
ning expenses, not to speak of its obligations to the Govern¬ 
ment of the Colony, Province and State. As a rule the 
Town defrayed its extraordinary expenditures out of 
rates and taxes or by the sale of real estate. 

But the borrowings of Boston while it was a town were 
mostly occasioned by conditions of peril or distress, 
e. g., in 1711, when the Town authorized a loan of £1,000 
for making a line of defence across the Neck; in 1775, 
when the Treasurer was directed to borrow £1,000 for 


182 


Boston and Its Story. 


one year for the supply of the Almshouse, and £1,018 
to pay the Province Tax of 1774; in 1776, when the 
principal of the outstanding notes of the Town amounted 
to £7,029, and in 1812, when Boston was paying interest 
on some $100,000 of Town and County notes. But the 
banner year was 1780, when the loans authorized by the 
Town, mostly to meet requisitions for contributions 
towards carrying on the war, amounted to £1,460,000 in 
Continental currency, or say £36,500 in specie. 

As a rule the cost of public buildings in Boston, prior 
to the extension of Faneuil Hall Market in 1825, leaving 
county buildings out of account, was defrayed by gifts, 
sales of real estate and taxes. By leases and gifts to the 
builders of wharves and docks the Town had pretty much 
lost control of the waterfront long before it became a 
city. 

As the Town was one of the original plantations, the 
demands for laying out of streets, market place and com¬ 
mons within the Neck were readily met by allotments of 
common land. The most prolific sources of extraordinary 
expenditures in early Boston were fortifications and the 
relief of the poor. 

The southernmost hill in Boston got its name from the 
fort whose erection was begun in 1632. On February 23? 
1635, at a general meeting upon public notice, it was 
“ agreed that for the raising of a new Worke of fortifica¬ 
tion upon the Forthill, about that which is there already 
begun, the whole town will bestow fourteen days’ work, 
by equal proportions.” Seven commissioners were 
authorized “to set down how many days work would be 
equal for each man to do,” and to determine what sums 
those who “were of greater ability and had fewer servants 
should pay.” Twelve of the leading men lent £50 to this 
work. 


Fortifications 1632-46. 


183 


In 1636 it was ordered by the General Court 

“That the inhabitants of Boston shall have the use of 
six pieces of ordnance, and that there shall be xxx lb. 
in money given to them, towards the making of a platform 
at the foot of the Fort Hill at Boston, and the inhabitants 
of the said town are to finish the said work at their own 
charges before the General Court in May next.” 

This work was later known as the Sconce or South 
Battery. 

The fort at Castle Island, begun in 1634, was built and 
maintained by the Country. In 1639 a grant of 500 
acres at Mount Wooliston was made “for the use of the 
Cannoneer of Boston.” The North Battery appears to 
have been started in 1646, at the instance and cost of the 
inhabitants of the North End, “whose hearts the Lord 
hath made willing to set about the erecting and main¬ 
tenance of a fortification at Walter Merry’s Point.” 

In 1673, when England was at war with Holland, the 
“Councell of the Countrie” recommended to the Select¬ 
men of Boston the erection of a wall or wharf upon the 
flats before the Town as a protection “from fire ships 
in case of an enemy.” On September 5, 1673, the Town 
voted: (1) Not to bear the cost of the proposed work; 
and (2) that the Selectmen might “order and dispose 
of the flats before the town for the security of the town as 
they may judge.” 

Accordingly, the Selectmen drew up a plan for a work 
or wharf of wood and stone to be 2,200 feet long, with 
a breadth of 22 feet at the bottom and 6 feet high; to 
extend from the South Battery to Skarlett’s Wharf, at 
the North End. To such of the inhabitants as should 
undertake the work the Selectmen offered to convey the 
flats between the proposed wall and the town, with the 
right to build wharves and warehouses “200 feet back 


184 


Boston and Its Story. 


towards the town.” No man should be allowed to 
subscribe or undertake for less than 20 feet of the wall or 
wharf. By November 11, 1673, forty-one sections 

(ranging from 20 to 150 feet), amounting to 1872 feet, were 
subscribed for. Such was the origin of the Barricado 
or Outwharf which is shown on Sheafe’s map of 1708. 
The Barricado, however, was a much less substantial 
structure than was originally projected. It appears to 
have consisted chiefly of a wall of upright piles or timbers 
driven into the flats, without wharves, but with three gaps 
in it to afford passage to ships. Atlantic avenue, con¬ 
structed 1875, occupies the site of the Barricado, only 
traces of which are shown on Bonner’s map of 1722. 

In March, 1696, the Town voted to allow the payment 
of £200 (out of the town rate of £500, granted that day) 
towards repairing the fortifications. But the town 
expected to be reimbursed out of the Province treasury. 
On March 8, 1697, the Town voted to raise £500 for the 
fortification and to buy powder, etc. In June, 1706, the 
Town voted a tax of £1,000 to be laid out in extending 
the North Battery; repairing the South Battery and for 
the fortification of the Neck; and a further tax of £1,000 
was voted in October of the same year for the same 
purpose. 

In 1711 the Town granted £1,000 for making a line of 
defence across the Neck between Boston and Roxbury, 
to be borrowed by the Treasurer from the inhabitants; 
and in May, 1712, another grant of £1,000 for finishing 
the line of defence on the Neck was voted. 

In 1733 the Town voted to raise £10,000 on polls and 
estates to defray the cost of repairing the batteries and 
building extensive new fortifications at Fort Point Chan¬ 
nel and Long Wharf. In July, 1734, the vote was recon¬ 
sidered and reversed, although meanwhile the Town had 


Fortifications 1697 - 1739 . 


185 


\ 

voted to petition the General Court to loan £10,000, the 
Town to be repaid in annual installments. Finally, in 
August, 1734, the Town appropriated £714, to be raised 
by a tax, to defray expenditures already made on the 
fortifications. 

In 1739 the defenceless state of the Town and the 
danger of attack from the sea again became an urgent 
subject. The Selectmen in a report, on March 10, 1739, 
recommended that the proceeds of the sale of three town¬ 
ships (embracing 69,120 acres in all), granted to the Town 
by the General Court in 1735, and sold for £3,660 in 1736, 
be devoted to repairing the batteries or raising other 
fortifications as the Town should judge necessary. Just 
a year later, the Town chose a committee, consist¬ 
ing of the Overseers of the Poor and the Collectors of 
Taxes, to raise £20,000 by subscription for “Putting 
the Town in a proper Posture of Defence.” 

Elaborate plans, involving an expenditure of £18,200, 
were proposed for strengthening the batteries and build¬ 
ing a series of piers, and providing hulks to fill up the 
channel (if necessary) between Castle William and 
Governor’s Island. 

In 1742, after much debate and considerable negotia¬ 
tion, the Province granted £1,000 for repair of the North 
and South Batteries; and the Town appropriated the 
residue of the proceeds of the sale of the three townships 
of land to the same purpose. It should be noted, that in 
1741 the Town, appropriated £700 out of those proceeds 
to buying cord wood for the supply of the inhabitants. 
It was voted to sell the South Battery in 1785, and the 
North Battery in 1787. It does not appear that an enemy 
ever appeared before the batteries or the Barricado to 
open fire upon them. 

The first reference to the poor of Boston occurs in the 


186 


Boston and Its Story. 


records of a General Meeting held March 23, 1635, 
when because “the wood upon the neck of land towards 
Roxbury hath this last winter been disorderly cut up 
and wasted, whereby many of the poor Inhabitants are 
disappointed of relief they might have had there in after 
and needful times”; it was generally agreed that three 
men, with the three Deacons, should “consider who have 
been faulty herein, and set down what restitution of Wood 
unto the poor such shall make according to their several 
proportions.” Ten months later the Town voted: 

“That the poorer sort of the Inhabitants such as are 
members or likely so to be, and have no Cattle shall have 
their proportion of allotments of planting ground, and 
other assigned unto them by the Allotters, and laid out 
at Muddy river.” 

The allotments were to be four acres or five per head 
according to their locations. In 1639 the General Court 
made it the duty of the Town “to settle and provide for 
poor persons.” From time to time outdoor aid was 
granted to various individuals, e. g., in 1658, when the town 
treasurer was ordered by the Selectmen to pay the house 
rent of Jonathan Negus for that year. At the same time 
it was ordered that the town treasurer should dispose of 
a legacy of £15 given by William Paddy to the poor of 
the Town. In November, 1660, the Town authorized 
the Selectmen “to make use of a piece of ground in the 
Common for the erecting an almshouse upon with suitable 
accommodations.” It was also ordered that a bequest of 
100 pounds from Mr. Henry Webb be used towards 
building the Almshouse; and Capt. R. Keayne’s bequest 
of “ 120 pounds for the use of the poor” was appropriated 
for the same purpose. In 1682 the Almshouse in The 
Common was destroyed by fire. The Town voted to 



PARK STREET AND CHURCH, STATE HOUSE AND BEACON HILL, 1812. 



















Sale of Sites in the Common. 187 

rebuild it and to provide a convenient stock and utensils 
to employ persons that may work there. It was also 
voted that the sum to be raised by the way of rate for the 
building and stock forementioned “shall not exceed 
1,000 pounds without further advice of the town.” 

This institution, which was sometimes called the 
Workhouse, was continued on its original site at the corner 
of the present Beacon street until a new Almshouse was 
opened in 1800, on Leverett street, in the West End. 
Early in the seventeenth century a Bridewell for dis¬ 
orderly and insane persons was built in The Common 
near the Almshouse. In 1738 a Workhouse was added 
to the public institutions, in The Common, which included 
the Granary erected in 1728. 

In 1795 the Town voted to sell all the land occupied by 
the Almshouse, Workhouse and Granary, together with 
“house lots in the land opposite the mall,” to defray the 
expense of purchasing land at Barton’s Point and erecting 
thereon “a commodious set of buildings for the accom¬ 
modation of the sick and poor inhabitants on a plan to be 
approved of by the Selectmen.” Accordingly, in the 
period 1796-1816, the Town sold sites taken originally 
from The Common for more than $78,000. 

In November, 1675, a rate amounting to £2,641 “for 
the occasions of the country for the Indian War” was 
committed to the constables of Boston. This rate, to 
meet the expenses of King Phillip’s War, appears to be 
the heaviest rate that Boston was called upon to raise 
during the Colonial period. The relief of the poor con¬ 
stituted so large a part of the Town’s occasions that it 
came to stand first in the preamble of orders for raising 
rates to meet current expenses, as for instance, in 1698, 
the Town voted that “ a rate of £800 should be raised by 


188 


Boston and Its Story. 


the Selectmen upon the Inhabitants of said town for the 
relief of the poor and other necessary charges.” 

At the March meeting of 1691 four gentlemen were 
chosen “ Overseers of the Poor” for the year ensuing. 
This was the first election of Overseers of the Poor as 
such. In 1692 the General Court passed an Act defining 
the powers and duties of the Overseers of the Poor of 
Boston and other towns. The Overseers of the Poor 
were incorporated by Act of Legislature in 1772. It 
was the first board concerned with the conduct of the 
Town’s affairs to be formally constituted a corporation. 
The present corporation has its own treasurer in whose 
custody are various funds, mostly bequests, for the relief 
of the poor, aggregating $896,056. At present the Over¬ 
seers of the Poor have charge of (1) the Wayfarers’ 
Lodge, opened in 1878, which gives free lodging to home¬ 
less men who are out of work. It exacts work in its wood- 
yard for meals furnished; and (2) the Temporary Home, 
opened in 1870, for destitute women and children. One 
of the main reasons for first dividing the Town into 
wards, in 1712, seems to have been to facilitate the adminis¬ 
tration of poor relief and the management of idle and 
disorderly persons by a Committee of Visitation, consisting 
of Justices, Overseers of the Poor, etc. 

In 1679 Boston suffered from a conflagration on account 
of which the Deputies to the General Court were instructed 
by the Town to ask for an abatement of the “last rate to 
the country which was above £800.” The Deputies were 
also instructed to seek legislation, giving the Town power 

“to eject all such persons that come from other towns or 
countries to reside here without due and orderly admis¬ 
sions, etc., for want of which power the town is filled with 
poor, idle and profane persons, which are greatly preju¬ 
dicial to the inhabitants, and that those Eastern people 


Growth of Poor Relief, 1679-1780. 189 

and others that came hither for shelter and relief in time 
of War may be removed, having been very chargeable 
to the town already.” 

The relief of the poor in Boston was proportionately more 
burdensome than in any other town, because of Boston’s 
eminence as a maritime town and because it became a 
favorite place of refuge in times of distress and warfare. 
Thus in 1742 the census takers of the Town returned the 
number of souls as 16,382, not including 110 in the Alms¬ 
house and thirty-six in the Workhouse. They add that 
“ there is about 1,200 widows included in the above 
number of souls, one thousand whereof are in low circum¬ 
stances & a great number of other persons so poor that 
they are not taxed.” 

Already in 1735, Boston had petitioned the General 
Court for an abatement of its tax, because of the decay of 
trade and the growing expenses of the Town. The cost of 
maintenance of the poor in 1734 amounted to £2,070 
against £940 five years before. Of eighty-eight persons 
in the Almshouse only one-third were “town born chil¬ 
dren.” It was suggested that the burden “ought to be 
proportionally borne by the Province.” “The Addi¬ 
tional Number of the town inhabitants” was claimed to 
be “chiefly owing to the resort of all sorts of poor people, 
while the town has no power to repell or prevent the 
growing evil.” 

In 1775, when the Town was staggering under the 
burdens caused by the war, out of £60,000 levied in 
taxes for ordinary expenses, no less than £16,000, or say 
£400 in specie, were for the sole use of the Almshouse. 
Similarly, in 1780, £70,000 in Continental currency were 
appropriated for the Almshouse. 

In March, 1781, it was necessary to organize a committee 
of thirty-six, three in each ward, to solicit subscriptions 


190 


Boston and Its Story. 


for the Almshouse, to be deducted from the next taxes “ to 
prevent the opening of the doors of the Almshouse that 
such as may be able may go from door to door seeking 
such relief of their compassionate and Christian Towns¬ 
men as might save them from perishing.” 

Using the term charity in a broad sense to include the 
various agencies of the City for the care and relief of 
its dependent population, the ordinary expenditures 
of Boston for charity in the year 1914-15 amounted 
to $1,199,149 (exclusive of $892,801 for hospitals), viz., 
(1) Children’s Institutions, $117,948; (2) Reform School, 
$76,203; (3) Infirmaries, $224,772; (4) Lodging Houses, 
$20,714; (5) Out-door relief by Overseers, $484,018; and 
(6) Miscellaneous, $275,494. 

According to the last Federal Census, there were 
in 1910 eighteen cities in the United States having 
300,000 or more inhabitants. Among them Boston, 
with a population of 670,585, ranked fifth. In 1912, 
the town of Hyde Park, which had 15,507 inhabitants 
in 1910, was annexed to Boston. The Massachusetts 
Census as of April 1, 1915, found 745,439 persons within 
the present limits of Boston. 

The first enumeration of the population of Boston was 
made by the town in 1722, when 10,567 persons were 
found after 844 had died of smallpox. By 1750 the 
population had increased to 15,730. Governor Gage’s 
census of 1775 reported 6,573 inhabitants in the town, 
and the Provincial Census of 1776 found only 2,719. 
By 1790, when the first Federal Census was taken, Boston 
had a population of 18,320. In 1822 Boston was incor¬ 
porated as a city with an estimated population of 46,226. 
Its population as a town was 43,298 in 1820, of whom 
more than nine-tenths were found in Boston proper, i. e., 
within the limits of the original settlement of 1630. 


Annexed Territory of Boston. 


191 


Perhaps the peninsula of Shawmut taken up by the 
original settlers of Boston in the late summer of 1630 
contained 750 acres of hard land. Through the filling in 
of coves and flats and the extension of the shore line 
the area of Boston proper has increased to 1,904 acres, 
or 6.9 per cent of the land within the present limits of 
the city. The most extensive reclamation schemes, as 
well as the largest additions of annexed territory, were 
effectuated during the nineteenth century. In 1800 the 
total area of land in Boston amounted to 2,218 acres, of 
Avhich 783 acres were in Boston proper and 1,435 acres 
in territory annexed since 1630, or 35.3 and 64.7 per cent, 
respectively. 

Most of the annexed territory of present Boston was 
acquired in the period 1868-74. 

The acreage of annexed districts since 1630, when 
annexed, is shown approximately in the following state¬ 
ment. 


Acres of Land Annexed to Boston Proper. 



Acres. 

Per Cent. 

1632-37 . 

1,435 

5.9 

1804-55 . 

795 

3.3 

1868-74 . 

. 19,213 

79.0 

1912. 

2,869 

11.8 

Total 

. 24,312 

100.0 


Present land in Boston, 27,684 acres. 

Fully 89.6 per cent of the present territory of the 
City of Boston was settled originally in 1629 or in 1630. 
Six several municipalities have been merged by acts 
of annexation with Boston proper, viz., the cities of 
Charlestown and Roxbury and the towns of Dorchester, 
West Roxbury, Brighton and Hyde Park. Charlestown 
was settled in 1629, and the others, except Hyde Park, in 




192 


Boston and Its Story. 


1630. West Roxbury, till it was set off as a separate town 
in 1851, was a part of Roxbury, while Brighton, till it 
became a town in 1807, was a part of Cambridge. 

Yet the fact remains that the Boston town meeting 
in 1639 held sway over more acres of land by more than 
15,000 than are included within the jurisdiction of the 
city government to-day, owing to the fact that most 
of the territory granted by the General Court to Boston 
“for its enlargement” in the period 1634-37 was, in 
the period 1639-1739, set off from Boston to form separate 
towns, e. g., Braintree in 1640; Brookline in 1705, and 
Chelsea in 1739, whereby Boston lost approximately 
41,000 acres of its outlying possessions. 

Broadly considered, the ninety odd years that have 
elapsed since Boston adopted city government may be 
characterized as a period of internal improvements 
throughout the United States. Every organ of govern¬ 
ment, national, state and local has been brought into play 
to meet the ever changing conditions of a young and 
undeveloped country. In the interval the processes and 
machinery of municipal housekeeping have been revolu¬ 
tionized as well as those of warfare, agriculture, transpor¬ 
tation, industry and commerce. On the whole, the govern¬ 
mental machinery of the nation and the several States 
has been less radically transformed and has stood the 
strain better than that of the urban communities as a class. 

As a city, Boston has not attained the rank which it 
relinquished when it ceased to be a town. Peerless as a 
town, it entered a new class of competitors when it 
became a city. It has had to re-form itself in the face of 
the multifarious and perplexing problems which have 
beset American cities, both old and new, ever since the 
first third of the last century. 


Boston as a City. 


193 


Among its compeers, Boston is admitted to be eminent, 
but not preeminent. It has borne well its part and 
achieved distinction in education, in letters, in art and 
science, as well as in enterprise and wealth. But it is 
hardly likely that any city will soon, if ever, occupy so 
dominant a position among the cities of the Union as 
Boston once held among its towns. 

It is not surprising that American cities are less highly 
developed than their elder sisters of the Old World, when 
one considers how meagre and amorphous was the body 
of urban tradition anywhere in the United States, when 
the chief centers of population became congested from 
the influx of domestic and foreign immigrants, and how 
many novel and unforeseen practical problems city authori¬ 
ties have had to grapple with in their rather frantic 
attempts to keep pace with the discoveries of science and 
the improvements in technology and engineering, which 
have been made during the last hundred years. The 
portentous growth in urban population since the early 
decades of the nineteenth century has caused a tremendous 
increase in the volume and cost of city business. It is 
worthy of note that, in 1915, the ordinary expenditures 
of Boston were 36.432 millions of dollars against 19.954 
of the Commonwealth. Even more staggering and unex¬ 
ampled has been the increase in the complexity of munic¬ 
ipal administration owing to the variety and number of 
new objects of expenditure, both ordinary and extraor¬ 
dinary. 

Some inkling as to changed conditions in urban com¬ 
munities brought about merely by the growth of popula¬ 
tion is afforded by such facts as these: (1) the estimated 
population of New York City as of January 1, 1916, viz., 
5,597,982, exceeds by 597,982 the enumerated population 


194 


Boston and Its Story. 


of the United States in 1800; and is upwards of two and a 
half millions more than the population of the Union 
according to the census of 1790; (2) Boston’s population, 
of 745,439, according to the census of 1915, exceeds by 
222,157 the population of Massachusetts in 1820. More¬ 
over, the composition of the population has been vastly 
changed in the interim. Thus, the census of 1910 showed 
that 35.9 per cent of the inhabitants of Boston were 
foreign-born whites; and that 74.2 per cent were of foreign 
white stock or parentage. Of the total population, 60.72 
per cent were derived from the following principal sources, 
viz., England, 3.90; Ireland, 26.49; Italy, 7.42; Russia, 
9.58; Canada, 13.33 (0.89 French, and 12.44 from Other 
Canada). 

But such facts are insignificant in comparison with the 
changes wrought in city housekeeping by the introduc¬ 
tion, since 1820, of illuminating gas, electric lighting, 
street cars, tunnels, water works, sewerage works, free 
bridges, public hospitals, public parks, night schools and 
free text books,— not to speak of modern improvements 
in street paving, street cleaning, the disposal of garbage, 
and the conservation of the public health. Yet in 1915, 
the city and county officials of Boston numbered only 
15,056, while those of the Commonwealth numbered 
25,065. 

The history of the city government of Boston reflects 
the same general conditions that have influenced the 
growth and expansion of the other large cities of the coun¬ 
try. It has been marked by many experiments, based 
upon “happy thoughts” and by tentative measures which 
were often halting compromises. As in most of the great 
cities of the country, development has not kept pace with 
growth; as it has been well-nigh impossible to adapt or 



THE 


CATHEDRAL 
CHURCH IN 


FIRST ROMAN CATHOLIC 
WITH FEDERAL STREET 


IN NEW ENGLAND, 
BACKGROUND. 


It was situated on Franklin Street. 














































































The First City Charter, 1822. 


195 


readjust governmental machinery which was adequate 
and effective in a semi-rural community to meet modern 
metropolitan conditions, involving a congested popula¬ 
tion, increasingly made up of aliens. Boston, like most 
other large American cities, is still in the process of transi¬ 
tion, but is groping its v r ay tow r ards the light of a better 
day, when it is to be hoped civic righteousness shall 
prevail over short-sighted and selfish politics, in state 
houses, as w r ell as in city halls, throughout the land. 

The city government instituted in 1822 differed most 
radically from the town government of 1821, in that the 
government of the city was vested in a mayor and city 
council. The city council, consisting of two legislative 
boards, took the place of the town meeting; but it also 
had large administrative and executive powers. The 
mayor and aldermen constituted the upper chamber, and 
the common council, consisting of 48 members, 4 being 
chosen in and for each ward, constituted the lower 
chamber. The mayor and 8 aldermen were chosen at 
large. As in the town, so in the city, ward officers, con¬ 
sisting of a warden, clerk, and inspectors of elections, were 
chosen in each ward; their functions being to conduct 
elections. 

The mayor ex officio presided over the meetings of the 
board of aldermen, and appointed their committees. The 
committees of the common council were appointed by the 
president of that board, which, besides choosing its own 
president, chose its own clerk. The city clerk, chosen 
by the city council, acted as recording officer for the mayor 
and board of aldermen. Certain of the old boards were 
given a place in the new scheme of government, viz., 
the school committee, the overseers of the poor, and the 
fire wards; but the powers of the old board of health were 


196 


Boston and Its Story. 


vested in the city council. The city treasurer and the 
city clerk, like the city auditor, whose office was established 
in 1824, were chosen by the city council. In the course 
of a few years, the fire wards were abolished, and a fire 
department was organized in their stead. A thoroughly 
organized police department, under the management 
of a commission did not emerge till 1878. 

It is probably fair to say that the new city government 
was intended to involve as little departure as possible 
from the framework and conceptions of the old govern¬ 
ment of the town. The charter even contained a provi¬ 
sion for the summoning by the aldermen, under certain 
conditions, of “general meetings” for the consideration of 
the common good, and giving instructions to the city 
council. It was in such “city meetings” that the ques¬ 
tion of water supply was debated for many years. Such 
meetings appear to have ceased in the early forties. It 
may be noted that 40 years later, statutory provisions for 
the holdings of such meetings are found. 

The charter of 1822 provided for representation of the 
several wards. Thus, in each of the ward meetings, there 
were chosen annually, 4 common councilmen; 3 fire wards; 
an overseer of the poor, and a member of the school 
committee. The newly organized city had no general 
system of sewers, no public water supply, no city engineer, 
no city solicitor or corporation counsel, and only an 
inchoate police department. The mayor, though titu- 
larly the chief executive officer, was to a large extent, a 
figure head. 

One outstanding characteristic of the city government 
of Boston under its first charter may be emphasized, 
namely, the extent to which the administrative business 
of the city was intrusted to joint committees made up of 


Present Government of Boston. 197 

members of the board of aldermen and the common 
council. This feature was also strongly marked in the 
government of Boston under the so-called new charter of 
1854 and the revised charter of 1885, although under the 
latter instrument the joint committees were somewhat 
shorn of the powers they had formerly exercised in the 
matter of the employment of labor and the making of 
contracts. 

Viewed objectively, and in the large, the government 
of Boston as a city, in contrast with its government as a 
town, has been subjected to an unusual amount of tinker¬ 
ing. Genuine development, as the result of purposive 
experimentation, is discernible, but that development 
has been less natural and orderly than was the develop¬ 
ment of the government of the town as such. Moreover, 
the General Court allowed the town a larger measure of 
home rule than it has accorded to the city. 

The present government of the City of Boston differs 
in many respects from that which was organized in 1822 
under the first charter. Notwithstanding the greatly 
augmented number of departments which have come 
into being since 1822, the general structure of the present 
government, consisting of the mayor and city council of 
9 members elected at large, is much simpler than it was 
down to 1909. Still, it must be said that the present 
scheme of government presents some excrescences, e. g., 
the police department, whose official head is appointed 
by the Governor; the licensing board, which controls the 
issuing of licenses for the sale of intoxicating liquor 
within the city, all of whose members are appointed by 
the Governor; and the finance commission, also appointed 
by the Governor. The latter is an advisory board, 
established under the amended charter of 1909. No 


198 


Boston and Its Story. 


other city in Massachusetts is in the same class as Boston 
in these respects. Moreover, the heads of departments, 
appointed by the mayor, are subject to approval by the 
Massachusetts Civil Service Commission, which also is 
charged with the duty week by week, and month by 
month, of approving the pay rolls of the City of Boston. 

These peculiar features of the present government of 
Boston bespeak the policy of the Legislature to restrict and 
meddle with the municipality to an extent which does 
not obtain with regard to the other 36 cities of the Com¬ 
monwealth. It would appear that Boston has been 
singled out for the limitation of its home rule on grounds 
of political expediency, rather than those of enlightened 
statesmanship. 

Another policy which has developed since 1822 is 
that of denying the citizens of Boston the right to vote 
upon amended charters; so that it is now true that 
Boston is practically the only city in the Commonwealth 
that is debarred from that privilege. 

Numerous acts of legislature have been passed from 
time to time, authorizing the institution of new adminis¬ 
trative departments or the re-organization of old ones. 
But the years 1854, 1885 and 1909 stand out as those in 
which comprehensive attempts were made to revise or 
amend the structure of the city government. 

In 1854 the city charter was revised by an act of the 
General Court, which down to 1884, was commonly 
known as the new charter. It did not essentially change 
the organization of the city government, although under 
it the mayor had rather more power than under the first 
charter. Administrative control was still largely left in 
the hands of committees of the city council. In 1885, 
the character of the city government was considerably 
changed by an act of legislature, that sought to con- 


Development of City Government, 1822-1909. 199 


c^ate more power and responsibility in the hands of 
t mayor. This act was not referred to the voters of 
Hon as the earlier charters had been. It gave power 
tie mayor to remove, as well as to appoint, heads of 
drtments. His veto was strengthened, and he was 
dowered to disapprove any order of the city council, 
gto disapprove items in loan and appropriation orders, 
$ect to passage over his veto by a two-thirds vote of 
i city council. He was relieved from presiding over 
• meetings of the aldermen and the school committee, 
p control of the police was taken from the city and 
ted in a commission, appointed by the Governor. At 
;sent, the police department is managed by a single 
nmissioner. 

It would be a tedious and not very informing task to 
ice the increase in the number and the transformation 
character of the departments since 1822. Re-organ- 
ation and consolidation have played a great part in 
ieir history during the last fifteen years, but they have 
een effected largely by piece meal, and by rather hap- 
azard measures. 

Certain general tendencies in the development of the 
ity government of Boston since 1822 may be noted. 
The most outstanding are: (1) the tendency to concen¬ 
trate power and responsibility in the hands of the mayor 
nd to make him more and more the executive head of 
he government; (2) to cut down the number and powers 
of the legislative department of the government. This 
policy culminated in 1909 in the abolition of the board of 
13 aldermen, who were elected at large, and of the common 
council, which then numbered 75, three being elected from 
each of the 25 wards; (3) the tendency to remove depart¬ 
ment administration from the interference or control 
of the city council. 


f 





200 


Boston and Its Story. 


Probably no son of Boston looms larger in the vi u s of 
the world than Ralph Waldo Emerson. Certainly Aione 
of her sons has equaled Emerson as an interpreter of 
Boston and its story. Hear him! 

“This town of Boston has a history ... Its annals 
are great historical lines, inextricably national; part of the 
history of political liberty. . . . America is growing 
like a cloud, towns on towns, States on States; and wealth 
(always interesting, since from wealth power cannot be 
divorced) is piled in every form invented for comfort or 
pride. . . . Moral values become also money values. 

When men saw that these people, besides their industry 
and thrift, had a heart and soul and would stand by each 
other at all hazards, they desired to come and live here. 
A house in Boston was worth as much again as a house 
just as good in a town of timorous people, because here 
the neighbors would defend each other against bad gov¬ 
ernors and against troops; quite naturally house rents 
rose in Boston. Besides, youth and health like a stirring 
town, above a torpid place where nothing is doing. In 
Boston they were sure to see something going forward 
before the year was out. For here was the moving 
principle itself, the primum mobile, a living mind agita¬ 
ting the mass and always afflicting the conservative class 
with some odious novelty or other; a new religious sect, 
a political point, a point of honor, a reform in education, 
a philanthropy. . . . There never was wanting some 
thorn of dissent and innovation and heresy to prick the 
sides of conservatism. . . . Here stands today as of 

yore our little city of the rocks; here let it stand forever, 
on the manbearing granite of the North. Let her stand 
fast by herself. She has grown great. She is filled with 
strangers, but she can only prosper by adhering to her 
faith. Let every child that is born of her and every child 
of her adoption see to it to keep the name of Boston as 
clean as the sun; and in distant ages her motto shall be 
the prayer of millions on all the hills that gird the town, 
1 As with our Fathers, so God be with us.’ Sicut Patribus, 
Sit Deus Nobis! ” 

H 1 8 8 9 4 -A 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF 


PERIOD la. 1629— 1684=1685. 

Company and Commonwealth. Revocatbn of 
Charter. 


I. THE COLONIAL PERIOD 

PERIOD lb. 1686 — MAY 25 — DEC. 20. 

Presidency of Joseph Dudley. 


i INTER=CHARTER PERIOD. 

PERIOD Ic. DEC. 20, 1686 — APRIL 18, 1689. 

Incumbency of Sir Edmond Andros. 


A. LEGAL BASIS. 

Charter of Charles I. granted in 1629, supplemented by 
liodye of Liberties adopted in 1641; revoked in 1684. 


1 he Will of the Crown. 


A. 


A. 


The Will of the Crown. 


B. LEGAL TITLE. 

ri Engiand rn ° r an< * Com,)any of ,ilc Massachusetts Bay in New 

C. JURISDICTION. 

I r t°lm pi mi i les r th ? f * the M ? rri '™‘ ck River to 3 miles south of 
the Charles River, between the Atlantic Ocean and South Sea. 


D. ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT. 
1. The Governor. 

Functions: Executive; Legislative and Judicial. 


B. B. 

The President and Council of His Majesty’s Territory and Dominion of New England. 
Dominion of New England. 

C. C. 

The Colony of Massachusetts Bay. The Colony of Massachusetts Bay. 

The Colony of New Plymouth. The Colony of New Plymouth. 

The Provinces of New Hampshire and Maine, and the King’s The Province of Maine. 

Province,- or Narragansett. The Province of New Hampshire. 


I. The President. 


The King’s Province. 


I. The Governor. 


D. 


2. The Deputy Governor. 

Functions: Executive; Legislative and Judicial. 


2. The Deputy President. 


2. Suppressed. 


3. The Assistants (to the number of eighteen). 

Junctions: Executive; Legislative and Judicial. 


3. The Council of 12 Counsellors. 


3. The Council of 25 Counsellors. 


4. Suppressed — Except in Local Government. 


4. Suppressed — Except in Local Government, in the towns. 


4'. Suppressed. 


4'. Suppressed. 



4. The Freemen, i. e., Members of the Company. 
Functions: Elective; Legislative; Judicial. 


4'. 1 he House of Deputies. Functions: 

Legislative; Judicial. Represented the Towns. 

1, 2, 3 and 4 constituted the Great and General Court or Assem¬ 
bly 1629-1634—when deputies or representatives of the Freemen 
in all General Courts, excepting the annual Court of Elections, 
were instituted. 1 he General Court was the highest Appellate 
Goiirt; the Quarterly Shire Courts being presided over by 
Assistants. 


E. THE ELECTORAL SYSTEM. 

1 lie Electorate consisted ot duly admitted Freemen — restricted 
to church members 1631-1662, when by order of Charles II. the 
suffrage was liberalized somewhat. Election was free i e.. by 
erection of hands. 1629-1633. ’ 

1. Secret ballot introduced in 1634. 

2. Proxy voting introduced in 1636 and established in 1637 

3. Direct primary elections begun in 1640, perfected 1643-1649. 


E. 

1,2 and 3 were appointed by the Crown, and 4' was suppressed — So 
4 had no voice in the Government in this or in Period 1c. 


E. 

Conditions were quite the same as in the previous period. 

In this, as in previous periods, the elective franchise in all town 
affairs was not restricted to Freemen. 


THE CONSTITUTION OF MASSACHUSETTS, 1629-1915 




II. THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD. 

III. THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 

PERIOD Id. APRIL 18 
-JUNE 7, 1689. 

PERIOD Id. JUNE 7, 
1689 TO MAY 15, 1692. 

PERIOD 11. MAY 16, 1692 — OCT. 7, 1774. 

PERIOD Ilia. OCT. 7, 
1774 — JULY 19, 1775. 

PERIOD Illb. JULY 21, 
1775 — SEPT., 1780. 

Revolt Against Andros. 

Provisional Government. 

Government by British Crown. 

Provisional Government. 

• 

Provisional Government. 

A. 

A. 

A. 

A. 

A. 

The Will of the People. 

Temporarily Restored Charter 
and laws. 

Charter of William and Mary, granted 1691, became effective 
May 16, 1692. 

The Will of the People. 

The Will of the People. 

B. 

B. 

B. 

B. 

B. 

l/ 

State of Massachusetts Bay. 



Their Majesties’ Province of Massachusetts Bay. 

The Colony of Massachusetts 
Bay. 

C. 

C. 

C. 

C. 

C. 


Bay Colony. 

Province of Maine. 

1. The Colony of Massachusetts Bay. 

2. The Colony of New Plymouth. 

3. The Province of Maine. 

4. Acadia or Nova Scotia. 

5. The Territory between Maine and Acadia. 

The Colony of Massachusetts 
Bay. 

Uie Colony of New Plymouth. 
The Province of Maine. 

The Colony of Massachusetts 
Bay. 

The Plymouth Colony. 

The District of Maine. 

D. 

D. 

D. 

D. 

D. 

The Council of Safety and 
Conservation of the Peace: 
consisting of 37 members under 
a President, Treasurer and 
Clerk, was formed April 20, 
1689. 

The Freemen of the Towns sent 
deputies at request of the 
Council May 9 and May 25 — 
and the government was eon- 
mitted to the Old Magistrates 
chosen in May, 1686, but who 
had been superseded by 
Dudley’s and Andros’s gov¬ 
ernments. 

1. Governor. 

(Restored.) 

2. Deputy Governor. 

(Restored.) 

3. Assistants. 

(Restored.) 

1. The Governor. 

2. The Lieutenant or Deputy Governor. 

3. The Council of 28 Councillors or Assistants — 18 from 

Massachusetts. 

3*. The Judges and Justices, who were appointed by the 
Governor, with the advice and consent of the Council. 

The Provincial Congress. 

1. Office left vacant. 

2. Office left vacant. 

3. Council of 28. 

3'. The Judiciary. 

4. The Freemen became active. 

4. Freemen. 

(Restored.) 

4. The Freeholders and Other Inhabitants. 

~ 

4. Freeholders and Other 
Inhabitants. 

4'. Deputies were chosen by 
the Freemen to aid the 
Council of Safety, and the 
General Court was re¬ 
constituted. 

4‘. Deputies. 

(Restored.) 

4'. The House of Representatives. 

1,2,3 and 4 1 constituted the General Court. 

1 and 2 were appointed by the Crown. 

4 1 were chosen by 4, and 3 were chosen by 4 l , and 3 subject to 
approval of 1. 

The Governor had an absolute veto over all Acts of 3 and 4‘, and 
all Acts of the General Court were subject to veto by the Privy 
Council in England. 

The Provincial Congress was 
thrice chosen by the Free¬ 
holders, etc., and then made 
way in June, 1775, for the 
First House of Representa¬ 
tives of the State, which con¬ 
vened July 19, 1775. 

4 1 . House of Representa¬ 
tives. 

A House of Representatives was 
annually chosen by 4, 1775- 
1780, and from it a Council 
was then chosen by 4*. 

The Council was (a) the Execu¬ 
tive Department, and (6) the 
Upper Chamber of the General 
Court. 

E. 

E. 

E. 

E. 

E. 

Elections and primary elections 
were held in accordance with 
usage prior to 1686. 

Elections occurred in 1089, 1690, 
1691, and 1692. 

The Electorate was confined to Freeholders with an estate valued 
at 40 shillings per year, or Inhabitants with any estate of £40. 

Direct Primary Elections did not obtain. Not more than 2 repre¬ 
sentatives allowed from any town except that Boston was 
allowed 4, the basis of apportionment being the number of 
Freeholders and other Inhabitants qualified to vote. 

The characteristics of the Elec¬ 
torate and Electoral System 
underwent no special change 
from the previous period. 

The Electorate and the Electoral 
system remained unchanged. 

N. B. The proposed constitu¬ 
tion of 1778 was rejected by 
the people. 


COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY EDWARD M. HARTWELL. 


IV. THE STATE PERIOD. 

PERIOD IV. SEPTEMBER 1780— 1915. 


A. 


The Constitution of 1780. 


B. 


The Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 


C. 


a. Massachusetts. 

b. Plymouth. 

c. Maine — till 1820, when it became a state. 


D. 

1. The Governor. 

Must have a Freehold of £1,000 and be of Christian 
religion. Rescinded in 1892. 

2. The Lieutenant-Governor. 

Must have a Freehold of £1,000 and be of Christian 
religion. Rescinded in 1892. Is ex officio a member of 3. 

i 

3. The Executive Council. 

Of 9 members chosen by 3 s and 4‘, out of 3 2 . Now, 8 are 
chosen by the people. 

3'. The Judiciary. Justices were required to be appointed by 

I, with advice and consent of 3. 

3 s . The Senate. 

40 chosen by 4. No property tests since 1840. 

4. Voters or “Citizens:” 

Must have a Freehold of £3 or £60 of other estate, and be 21 
years old. 

4‘. House of Representatives. 

Chosen by 4. No property tests since 1840. 

Art XXX. Bill of Rights separated the Legislative, Execu¬ 
tive and Judiciary powers. 

3 2 and 4' constitute co-ordinate branches of the Legislative 
Power. 

1, 2 and 3 — branches of Executive Power. 

3 l was made the Judiciary Power, the Judges being appoint¬ 
ive by the Governor. 


E. 

The Electorate comprised males of 21 years of age and upwards, 
having £3 of Freehold or £60 of other estate — changed by 
Amendments — so that males of 21 years, naturalized and literate 
now have the elective franchise if duly registered. 

Senatorial Districts, originally based on proportionate amount of 
State taxes are now based on numbers of legal voters (since 1857). 

Apportionment of Representatives, originally on the basis of ratable 
polls, now depends on the numbers of legal voters disclosed by 
the decennial census (since 1857). Councillor Districts, 8 in 
number, are based on the number of inhabitants (since 1886). 



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